


Crawl Towards a Life of Fragile Lines

by NyxEtoile, OlivesAwl



Series: A Brush With the Devil Can Clear Your Mind [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Childbirth, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Infertility, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-04-11 14:39:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19111738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxEtoile/pseuds/NyxEtoile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlivesAwl/pseuds/OlivesAwl
Summary: "I don't have to. It can go in a box in a safe on the bottom of the ocean. Just because I figured out how it could work, doesn't mean it will."It was a little painful to watch, because she knew why he hesitated. Not just about what he feared they might lose, but by reopening something he'd made peace with. He wasn't a superhero anymore. It was a little like dangling heroin in front of an addict trying to stay clean. Saving the world was his siren song. Still, she knew him better than anyone on this earth. "Would you ever get a good night's sleep again?"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to the first Tony/Pepper story in this series. It starts at the beginning of Endgame and will probably run well past the end. Major spoilers, obviously.
> 
> Title from the Mumford & Sons song _Ditmas_

Five rounds of IVF and eight transfers. The last two were donor eggs. The options left were surrogacy or adoption. In all that, Pepper hadn't seen so much as a positive pregnancy test since the one Jess bought her out in LA almost two years ago.

Except the one she was now looking at.

She didn't do the thing she'd done before, go get six of them and take them all. She was friends with a doctor now. She knew they didn't do false positives.

The compound was miserable. They were all miserable. Nobody had heard from Tony since he left the atmosphere on the alien ship. All of the surviving Avengers had come back from Wakanda and set up camp in the compound. Pepper was staying on one of the spare rooms—she thought it had once been Wanda's—because she couldn't bear to go back to her house across the lake. Company was nice right now, even if it was miserable company.

Most of them were down in the labs, trying to get some pager they'd found in the ashes of Nick Fury to work. What they thought would come of it, Pepper didn't know. But it was something to grasp at.

She needed someone to talk to, and it wasn't going to be any of them. They were still trying to save the world. Fat lot of good that would do her, anyway. Lani was really the person for this, but she was holding the rest of them together with tape, and the dark circles under her eyes made Pepper not want to put any more weight on her.

Doc was in her office. Doc would appreciate this.

"Good morning, Amanda," Pepper said from the doorway. "Do you need any more fucked up irony in your life?"

"I'm always up for a game of 'how fucked is the universe.'"

Pepper walked over and put the little stick and its two pink lines on Amanda's desk. She stared down at it a moment, then sighed deeply. "I'm going to have to deliver a baby, aren't I?"

With her own sigh, Pepper sat across from her. "Something like 80% of the IVF embryos were abnormal," she said. They'd had them all genetically tested in hopes of not having another miscarriage. "I don't think you'll have to worry about much more than a possible D&C."

"Any idea how far along you are? Want me to run some blood tests?"

"FRIDAY tracks my cycles and says five weeks. And it can't, mathematically be less."

Amanda considered that. "Good time for a test. Take one now and again in forty eight hours. I'll be able to tell your your odds of loss."

She stared at her hands a moment. "Maybe a loss would be best in the end."

"Not a fan of the something to remember him by trope?"

Her throat closed. "Believe me, remembering him is not a concern."

Amanda gave her a sympathetic nod. "I could give you something to hurry it along, if you prefer."

Pepper took a shaky breath. "I'm going to give it a little time. But I love you for offering that without judgement."

"Not my job to judge. I'm here to keep you healthy."

"I'll take that blood test. Just in case."

Amanda nodded and got to her feet to go get her supplies. The initial numbers were higher than she'd expected. "I think you might be further along than you think, or you're having twins."

"That's not even remotely funny."

"An ultrasound will provide more useful information. I think I have the equipment around her somewhere."

There was something profoundly awkward about having a friend give you a medical test that involved implement that look a whole hell of a lot like a dildo. But I was worth it for what turned up on the screen—one tiny beating heart.

Amanda fiddled with the machine a while, jamming said dildo-like object at some uncomfortable angles. At one point, the little grey alien bean wiggled around on the screen. "Okay, you're measuring closer to 6 weeks. Could be you ovulated at an odd point in your schedule, or the fetus could be on the bigger side." She finished her poking and slid the ultrasound out. "It looks healthy, though. A visible heartbeat is a great sign."

Pepper reached to touch the screen and tried unsuccessfully not to cry. "I wish he could see this."

"I know." She reached over and squeezed her arm. "Me too. I know how much he wanted to be a dad."

She put her hand over Amanda's and tried to pull herself together. When she got her voice steady, she said. "Yeah. You're gonna have to deliver a baby."

"I've done it before. Hopefully this one will be nice and boring." She blew out a breath "We need to get you some prenatal vitamins and talk about common first trimester issues."

Pepper took a shuddery breath, fighting a sudden surge of panic. Like she'd committed to it, and now it was real. "I don't know how I'm going to do this."

Amanda squeezed her arm. "We're going to do it together."

"I know it's not your thing, but can I hug you?"

The other woman smiled and held out an arm. "Of course." Pepper hugged her and closed her eyes. They would survive, somehow.

"Pardon me, Dr. Newbury," FRIDAY said. "Your presence is requested in the engineering lab."

Her brows went up. "What on earth use could I be there?"

"I'll take that as my cue," Pepper said. "Go see what they want."

A couple hours later, Pepper was just about to get ready for bed—because she was suddenly exhausted super early—when Lani hovered into her doorway. She had such a serious look on her face, Pepper asked, "Amanda tell you?"

"I. . . no. Actually, I'm here to tell you something."

Pepper sat and stared at her. "Please don't tell me you're quitting. I mean, it would be perfectly understandable but also I think this place will implode, and I really, really am going to need some guidance."

"No," she said, smiling a little. "I've got a bit left in me yet." She cleared her throat. "Someone answered Fury's pager. A woman named Carol."

That seemed almost non sequitur. "Are we. . .what, taking in Fury's girlfriend now?"

"No. She's. . . not quite human. I'm getting this second hand from Amanda but apparently she has powers. Real powers. And she can survive in space. Amanda asked her to go look for Tony. FRIDAY got a signal from his suit."

The room tilted and her stomach flipped. "Is he still alive?"

Lani held up her hands. "There's no way to tell until she finds him. All this means is the suit is still functioning and online."

She stared at the carpet. "If the suit's operational it will bring him home even if he's dead in it." He'd told her that like it would reassure her. For a long time she had intermittent nightmares of the suit coming home, opening up, and dropping a corpse at her feet.

"She left to go look," Lani said gently. "So we'll know soon."

Pepper inhaled through her nose and out her mouth. "I'm pregnant."

Lani stared a moment. "My, this is a very exciting day. Did you just find out?"

"Yeah. So I'm going to go throw up, and I don't want you to worry."

"I will not worry. Please go ahead."

She stood slowly. "Let me know when there's something to know."

"Of course." She gave her a sympathetic look as she headed to the bathroom.

Emptying her stomach helped, and then she went down to the kitchen to get some crackers. Thor and Rocket were having some conversation about what space did to dead bodies, and they both stopped when they saw her. Which told her where the subject had originated. Amanda was on the deck and so she took her crackers out there.

Amanda, as always, was a steadying force. Always calm, always pragmatic. Pepper could talk to her about corpses without feeling nauseous.

"I just figured. . . if all we get is something to bury. . . that's still something."

Of course, there were moments the emotion showed through as well.

They saw the light appear above, of something entering the atmosphere. When it became apparent it was not only Carol, but a spaceship of some kind, they were both on their feet. Pepper ran towards the swath of grass it was landing on.

Of course he had a ship. He'd found it or built it—he'd made the Iron Man armor with scraps in a cave. Hope sparked and surged. She didn't want it to, because if she was wrong it would be so much worse. Hope corroded emotional armor like acid. "If he was on a ship. . ." Her throat closed and she shook her head.

She hadn't believe in God in decades, but she prayed anyway. Amanda stopped next to her and held her hand. It was the longest two minutes of Pepper's entire life

Then the ship was on the ground and the back door opened. And there he was. Tony Stark, back from the dead one more time, leaning on a blue woman as they staggered down the steps off the ship. 

She ran. Steve ran faster than her, and then she had to slow down because she felt nauseous again. Puking on the grass would not help anything. And then it took her another moment to move—slower this time—because she could see just how bad he looked. Frighteningly thin and his skin was almost gray. He _looked_ like a corpse who somehow was still alive.

Never in her life had she been horrified and heart-stoppingly grateful at the same moment. "Oh, my God," was all she managed to get out. She reached for him and he collapsed into her hug.

She heard him take a breath of her hair. "It's okay."

It was not even remotely okay. She could feel his shoulders and his ribs and his spine. All bone and no muscle. He was breathing hard and leaning his weight on her. After a moment she sucked in a breath and yelled, "Amanda!"

There was running footsteps immediately and she could hear her talking to FRIDAY. Tony started a little when she yelled and watched Amanda coming towards them, face unreadable. "Please let her check you," Pepper said. She'd intended to be firm about it, but she was crying so that's not how it came out.

Amanda didn't give him much of a choice, hand covered in suit tech, and clearly taking readings.

His reaction was explained when he said, "Didn't dare hope I'd get you both."

Pepper saw the flash of reaction on Amanda's face and the way she closed her eyes when she touched forehead's with him. After that, he got on the gurney she'd brought without a fight.

"I am going to put a GPS tracker on you," Rhodey said as he helped him up. Pepper could hear how rough his voice was and she reached out and squeezed his arm. The two of them had done this too many times.

If Pepper had been worried hugging Tony, it was so much worse back in the infirmary when they got his shirt and jacket off so she could hook him up to the EKG. He held onto Pepper's hand while he drifted in and out and Amanda ran her tests.

Her assessment didn't have any surprises in it. He was starving and dehydrated and his heart was even weaker than it had been. Amanda wasn't carrying any tension and she'd immediately fallen back into joking with him, so Pepper trusted there wasn't anything she wasn't saying.

Pepper did loose her temper a little bit because he was trying to work—or, more likely, pick a fight with Steve—but they got him settled down quick enough. Pepper spent the night sleeping in a chair. Mercifully, Tony slept through her throwing up in the morning.

Then she made the apparently catastrophic mistake of going to take a shower, because when she came back, he'd gotten himself out of bed, gone into the common room, eaten a bowl of cereal and had a loud argument with Steve which culminated in him ripping out his IV, pulling off the arc reactor Amanda was using as a pacemaker, and throwing it at Steve before collapsing on the floor.

You could hear Amanda yelling from down the hall.

When she was done describing all the gruesome ways he could have killed himself, she left him in his recovery room and stormed to her room, slamming the door. When Pepper asked, FRIDAY informed her Dr. Newbury was not accepting calls.

Tony was back in his hospital bed, staring sullenly at the ceiling. Pepper stood at the foot of the bed for a moment, trying to decide if she had something useful to say. She was apparently pretty angry herself, given how her hands were shaking.

"She gave me another sedative, so if you're going to yell, you should squeeze it in before it kicks in."

She sunk down in her chair and put her head in her hands, anger dissolving into. . . she didn't even know what. Something that made her cry. She could feel pressure in her chest, the kind of great heaving sobs she'd so far managed to hold it. They were going to come out if she opened her mouth, but if they did he was going to hurt himself getting out of the bed. She just had to hold her breath until whatever Amanda had put in his IV knocked him out.

It didn't take long for him to start snoring, which he didn't do when drugged. The amusement didn't kill the anger, but it tempered it enough she was able to get up and go back to her room.

She heard a noise in the doorway and looked up to see Lani hovering in the doorway. Pepper shook her head. "It's nothing new. Or, at least, nothing I am up for discussing." She stood. "But if you could sell him on his own mortality when he wakes up, that would be great."

"I'll sit with him," she promised. "What I can convince him of depends on what version of Tony I get when he wakes up."

Pepper sighed. "Yeah." She squeezed Lani's shoulder as she went by. "I'll be back in a bit."

Back in her room, she picked up the damp towels she'd hastily tossed on the bed when she'd herd Amanda yelling. From above, FRIDAY said, "You have 22 new messages."

She looked up, surprised. "From who?"

"Mr. Stark. I've connected with the damaged suit that was in the space ship with him. Its memory contains 22 messages addressed to you."

She sat on the end of the bed. "Play them." She expected them to be voice, but a hologram popped up in the corner. It was Tony, looking like he'd just come out of the battle.

"Hi Pep. Sorry about this. At some point I promise I'm going to stop sending messages telling you that I'm not dead. But in this case I'm not. Clearly. I do have a hole in my side, but I'm sure that'll be fine." He stared stared off into the distance, and sounded haunted when he said, "Peter stowed away in the space ship. Survived the battle and turned to ash in my arms." He took a shaky breath and seemed to compose himself. "Anyway. I need to go get this bucket if bolts running again, so I can get home. See you soon."

They were all like that, brief updates on what he was doing, how many days it had been. She got to watching him heal from the wound in his side, then get an infection, then slowly lose weight.

"I've taught Nebula how to play paper football. She's intense. Either constipated or having a ball, it's really hard to tell."

"Freeze dried alien vegetables are somehow even more disgusting than it sounds."

"Ninety five percent sure blue girl's not going to kill me in my sleep."

The last one popped on, with him sitting, looking as emaciated as he was in the other room now. "Hey, Miss Potts." He sighed and leaned back, resting against something not in the video. "If you find this recording, don't post it on social media, it's gonna be a real tearjerker." He sighed. "I don't know if you're ever going to see these. I don't know if you're still. . ." He glanced away, voice going soft. "Oh God, I hope so."

It was clear he'd given up, with no hope of getting home. "Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning and. . . that'll be it. Look, I know I said no more surprises but I gotta say I was really hoping to pull off one last one."

She was crying again now, hand over her mouth to keep the sound in because his voice was so quiet. "Seems like a thousand years ago I fought my way out of that cave, became Iron Man, realized I loved you. . . I don't know why you put up with all my fuck ups, but I'm grateful you did." He paused. "We should have gotten married. The paperwork you're going to have to deal with now. . .add that to the list of things I'm sorry for."

How Pepper laughed around her tears she had no idea. Leave it to him to get her to do so.

"Tell Doc. . . tell her to spend all my money fixing the world. If she's not around to do it. . ." He sighed and shook his head. "Nah, even Thanos couldn't take her out. Tell her thanks for keeping me alive the last couple years."

He was silent a long moment, then rubbed his eyes. "I should lie down. Rest my eyes." He shifted, closer to the camera recording him. "Please know that when I drift off, it'll be like everything lately. I'm fine. Totally fine. I dream of you."

Pepper leaned forward, and he whispered, "It's always you." The last thing she saw was his hand shake as he reached to turn it off, for what she knew he expected to be the last time.

She hadn't known how close it was. 

When she'd composed herself, she got up and went back to the infirmary. It was dim in there, because of his eyes, despite it being mid day. He was still out, and Lani was reading a book. "It's okay," Pepper said. "I got him."

"Are you sure?" Lani asked, folding the book closed. "If you smother him with a pillow, Amanda will be very put out."

Pepper gave a laugh. "I promise."

She nodded and hovered out of the room, giving Pepper's hand a pat on the way out.

Pepper sat there for a while, lost in her thoughts. Eventually Amanda came to check on him. She was still at pillow-smothering mad, so they didn't chat much. Pepper got some food and came back. She ran into Natasha in the kitchen, who apologized for that morning and told her they were going after Thanos again. 

When the spaceship took off, it rattled the building enough to wake Tony, but she didn't mention what it was. He blinked at her drowsily, then murmured, "I was dreaming about you." He smiled like it was Christmas morning. "And you're here."

"I'm here," she replied, reaching for his hand.

He tugged on it. "Lay down with me."

"I don't think Doc-"

"Please, Pepper." He moved over, and she thought it would stress him less and settle him sooner if she cooperated. 

She settled in next to him, but on top of the blankets. It was super warm in the room already, because of he had no body fat. She laid her head on the pillow next to him. "You've got to be careful with yourself," she whispered.

"It wasn't my choice to get stranded in space and slowly starve and/or suffocate."

Brushing back a little bit of his hair, she said, "It was your choice to throw your pacemaker at Steve." Before he could reply, she added, "The cereal bowl would have been better." Not that he was supposed to have the cereal, either. Amanda had been particularly mad about the milk.

"I'd already thrown it across the table," he admitted.

She laughed despite herself. "I really missed you."

"I missed you, too. Every day."

She traced her fingers along his jaw, which was entirely too sharp. "Do you remember the day you got on the spaceship, you told me you'd had a dream we had a son we named after my crazy uncle?"

"Morgan," he supplied. "Very weird dream."

"And you thought your subconscious was telling you I was pregnant."

She could see him wince. It had been a dumbass thing to say at the time, given all their struggles. "In my defense, if I'd known that might be our last conversation I wouldn't have-"

Oh, she hoped she wasn't about to give him a heart attack. "You were right."

He stopped and shifted his head to look at her. It was hard to tell through the sunglasses, but she thought there was rapid blinking. "You're pregnant." She nodded. "Oh thank God. Your breasts really are bigger. I thought I was losing it."

Pepper laughed. "I suppose they are."

He shifted enough to kiss her. "When?" 

"November. I think." She fished her phone out of her pocket. "Hey, FRIDAY, can you show the ultrasound video on here?"

She didn't even respond, the video just started working, showing the little wiggly bean. Tony reached up to cup the back of her hand, bringing the phone closer so he could watch it. "Hi there," he whispered.

"Not out of the woods yet, but Amanda says the heartbeat is a really good sign." She swiped the screen to raise the volume and you could hear the rapid _whoop whoop whoop_ of the heartbeat.

"May he or she have a better heart than mine." He kissed her again. "Congratulations, Mama."

She rested her forehead against his. "I was going to wait to tell you. Until it was further along or you were stronger. But I want you to take your recovery seriously. Because _we_ need you."

He nodded, resting his head back on the pillow. "Message received."

Sighing deeply, contentedly, she settled with him. "You knocked me up. You'd better make an honest woman out of me."

"Just as soon as I can stand on my own power," he promised, playing with her hair.

"Sleep," she murmured. "I'll be here."

"Promise?" he mumbled.

She leaned up to kiss his forehead. "I promise."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The baby squawked indignantly, which made him laugh. He grinned at Pepper. "Look what we made."_   
>  _She sniffled like she was crying. "In the midst of the end of the world, no less."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get a schedule going, and am aiming to post this story on Tuesdays from now on.

Thanos destroyed the stone. The Avengers destroyed Thanos. It was too late to undo everything. This was the world they lived in now.

It wasn't entirely the fault of Steve Rogers, but Tony couldn't shake the thought that if the Avengers had been together, they could have beaten him. And he was mad at Rogers for that other thing, too, so he was a convenient target to aim his anger at.

If he hadn't been so sick, he might have punched him. At the very least he didn't want to look at him. "How about we go to California?" Pepper asked, while Doc still had him on the damn IV. "It's our favorite place to recover from things."

He glared at the IV as if it, also, was the source of all his woes. "A change of scenery would be nice."

"We could plant a big vegetable garden. I'll even let you plant strawberries. They may be hard to come by in the short term."

"Won't that kill you? Or make you itchy?"

"It's not like peanuts. I get a rash if I eat them. Which I'm not going to, but you can have some."

He studied her a moment. "Wow. You _really_ want to go to California."

Pepper put her hands on her hips. "I don't want to have a baby in the snow. What do you say?"

"Can we bring Doc?" He figured she could be talked into it since he was still sick. Mostly he didn't want Steve to have her. That was petty as fuck but he didn't much care.

"Yeah. Just don't offer her the attic, okay?"

He was deeply amused that Amanda brought up the attic herself. Clearly she and Pepper were spending too much time together. She agreed to come and hang out in the guest room until he was healed, which was enough for him. As soon as she approved him traveling, they took the jet out to California.

Recovering from starvation wasn't the most pleasant thing ever. Pepper had morning sickness, so they were miserable together. He was ravenously hungry all the time, and Amanda made him eat healthy food. Slowly he stopped looking like the friend of his who died of AIDS in the '90's. The day Amanda let him have an actual cheeseburger was one of the best meals of his life. 

"You're making sex noises," she informed him, sipping her milkshake. They were eating on the porch because the smell of his burger had bothered Pepper. "It's unsettling."

"Jealous?" he asked, taking a big bite.

"No, filing it away for my inevitable tell all."

"You're not getting anything in my will if you write a book. That's in everybody's clause."

"I'll make plenty of money off the book, I won't need yours."

"I like you because you're smart." He offered her a french fry.

She took it and sipped her drink again, leaning on the porch post. "It's very relaxing here."

He looked out at the fields and nodded. "That's why we come here."

By the time summer started in earnest, Amanda let him work out again, and he started putting muscle mass back on. Pepper started seriously showing. And they found out that the baby they'd just somehow kept calling Morgan and assuming was a boy was in fact a girl.

"Morgan's a good name for a girl, too," he insisted in bed that night. "Morgan Fairchild."

Pepper's bump was very visible now. She was into maternity clothes and looked unmistakably pregnant. Pepper could feel her moving, but only from the inside. Tony liked to lay with his hand on it anyway, just in case. Genetic testing would have told them sooner, but the labs that did that sort of thing weren't functional right now. They'd had to wait until Amanda could see it on an ultrasound. "Her middle name is not going to be Fairchild."

"I agree." He kissed her shoulder, cupping her belly. "What should her middle name be?"

"I don't know." She looked over at him. "When it was a boy I was going to suggest Peter."

Tony sighed, letting that hit him and fade. "Too many people to choose from, isn't there?"

"We've got time."

He rubbed her belly gently. "We do."

As soon as he'd been well enough to get his brain working, Amanda had convinced him the world needed medical robots. Variants of her suit to be worn by people, and a larger production of a meld of those and the Iron Legion he'd once built. There weren't enough medical people, and automated equipment helped fill the gap.

By the time he could feel Morgan moving around from the outside, it had become apparent living in the middle of nowhere and operating a company was a pain in the ass. They moved north, closer to San Francisco, opening offices and research labs near Stanford at Doc's request.

He and Pepper bought a house that still felt like it was in the middle of nowhere, but was 5 minutes from civilization. Their nearest neighbors were a couple of families squatting together in a mansion whose owners had dusted. He hooked them into his utilities, fixed their roof, and told them to holler if they needed anything or anyone bothered them. In return they brought he and Pepper fruit and vegetables from their massive garden.

Amanda, despite her protestations, was a very good OB/GYN. Tony was pretty sure it was good for Pepper to have a doctor she could have tea and cookies with. Even with the slow rollout of his robot medics, hospitals were short staffed and often overcrowded, so they turned one of their spare rooms into a birthing suite. Amanda was not, shall we say, thrilled with being in charge of a home birth. But he managed to get all the equipment she requested and Pepper's family history of normal, healthy births seemed to appease her.

The weekend before Pepper's due date, a weather system came up from the tropics and brought torrential rain with it. Since they lived far enough up in the hills that mudslides were a concern, Amanda came to stay with them for the duration of the storm, bringing one of her nurses from her labs. She didn't trust Tony to be calm or useful if she needed help.

"I'm a superhero," he protested as she helped him cook dinner one night. "I'm good in a crisis."

"Good in a crisis does not mean you're okay with seeing your wife's internal organs."

"We're not technically married," he replied, then looked at Pepper. "We should see to that."

"You're really pedantic when you know I'm right," Amanda commented.

"I fight the battles I can win. How likely do you think internal organs are?"

"If there's a c-section I'll need help, and there will be internal organs."

"How _likely_ do we think that is?" he repeated, hoping he didn't sound as panicked as he thought he did.

"Eh. 20%?"

He supposed that was high enough to keep a just in case nurse on hand.

"I'm not 100% sure the placenta won't make you keel over, too," she added.

"Guys," Pepper said. "We're eating."

"He started it," Amanda replied.

"Like this is the first gross conversation we've had over food," Tony retorted.

"Okay, well. I'm tired, so I'm going to lay down." She stood up very slowly. "You guys can be gross together."

"Honey-" Tony started.

"Are you all right?" Amanda asked before he could finish, watching Pepper move. 

"I'm fine," she said. "Just tired. I'm 39 weeks pregnant, it happens. No contractions." She kissed Tony's temple. "Don't stay up too late mad-science-ing things."

"I'll do my best," he promised, rubbing her hip as she passed.

He could see Amanda watching him, and she asked, "You okay?"

"Nervous as fuck," he admitted, because if he couldn't admit it to her, who could he. "I'm totally going to fuck this kid up."

"Probably." He made a face, and she added, "All parents do."

"Everyone says that, but most people seem all right. You seem to have had good parents."

"Doesn't make them perfect. And my mother died when I was young, so I wouldn't call my family normal."

Yeah, it was pretty obvious with any amount of thought that fucked up childhoods were de rigeur for superheroes. "You think I'll be a good dad?"

"Yes," she said immediately and with great conviction.

He didn't like to admit how much her opinion meant. Or the measure of relief her confidence gave him. "'Cause you'll smack me around if I'm not?"

"I will. And I'll even have help."

A long line of it, he would imagine. "I'm sure she's going to love her Auntie Mandy."

"She is _not_ calling me that."

"Not even if her middle name is Amanda?"

She tipped her head back, eyeing him suspiciously. "You're not serious."

"Well, now I am," he said, getting himself another helping of pasta.

"You are not naming your daughter after me." She sounded vaguely pissed, which probably meant she was touched and hiding it.

"No, we're naming her after a vision I had in a dream and/or Pepper's weird uncle. At least I like you."

Her mouth quirked a little before she hid it again. "Amanda is an awesome middle name."

As it turned out, Pepper went into labor early the following morning, in the middle of the worst of the storm. One of the caveats of the home birth was Amanda didn't feel comfortable with her having any anesthesia unless it was an emergency situation. No epidural meant everybody got to go through the miracle of childbirth the old-fashioned way.

Tony felt. . . very helpless. He took his turn helping Pepper pace the hallways and squat on her exercise ball. He fed her ice chips and rubbed her back when she want. He let her call him every name in the book when the contractions got bad. But none if it really felt like he was helping. He didn't like seeing her in pain and he didn't like problems he couldn't fix.

Towards the end, it got really bad as she got no breaks between them. She stood and leaned on him as that was the only position she could stand. He was pretty much holding her up entirely, and she just pressed her face into his shirt and cried. "I can't take any more of this."

He looked over at Amanda. "Can you do something?"

She shook her head. "We're almost there."

Sighing, he pressed a kiss to Pepper's temple. "You got this," he told her. "You're Pepper fucking Potts. You got this."

Her response was mostly a scream, and then she pulled on his shoulders. "Down, down."

"You want- Is that a good-?"

She dug her nails into his neck, and it hurt. " _Down._ " Now they were on the floor, though he really wasn't sure they should be on the floor.

"Amanda I would really like push," she said in a rush.

Amanda came over and hunkered down on the floor with them, snapping a glove on to check her. "All right. Do you want to stay here to push?"

She nodded, so apparently they _were_ doing this on the floor. Every movie he'd ever seen with a birth they were always in a bed. They also seemed to take a long time, with people chanting to push while the woman yelled. 

So he was very surprised that it was once, twice, a very primal scream. . . and there she was.

The baby shrieked in dismay at now being in the cold. Amanda efficiently wiped off her nose and mouth and set her on Pepper's chest while she dealt with whatever else needed to happen down there.

Tony decided it was a better idea to focus on the baby. He pulled a towel off the stack next to them and covered her with it, rubbing her back. She leaned against him, trying to catch her breath. "Hi, Morgan."

The baby squawked indignantly, which made him laugh. He grinned at Pepper. "Look what we made."

She sniffled like she was crying. "In the midst of the end of the world, no less."

He leaned over and kissed her, wrapping his arms around both of them.

It was a lot of work, and a lot of sleepless nights, but it was the best kind of tired he'd ever been. He didn't realize how many long, old wounds Morgan would heal.

"You look content," Lani told him when she came out to California to meet the baby.

Morgan was sleeping on his chest, which he had been informed was a bad habit to begin but he couldn't find it in him to care. "I am. A lot of things I used to worry about or carry with me just don't seem as important anymore."

Lani herself looked exhausted, and like she was carrying the world. "I think everyone is a little different these days. Re-evaluating their priorities. It's healthy."

"Not to be rude, but you look like shit, Yee."

He could see her professional side war with her personal side. "Some are having a harder time doing that than others."

Very neutral of her. "It's not your job to hold up the world."

"It absolutely delights me that _you_ just said that."

"You've done such good work with me. Feel like I should return the favor."

She sighed. "I think I am remembering why I liked doing counseling over the internet. Or at least via scheduled appointments. Being on duty 24 hours a day is. . . tough."

Tony rubbed Morgan's back. "So go back to the online counseling. Move out here, make them email you like I used to."

She seemed to be considering. "Too bad I sold my house."

"I'll buy you a new one." She tilted her head and made a face at him. "You never did let me buy you that car."

Lani tilted her head back, and he knew they were negotiating now. "I'll let you buy me whatever expensive life purchase you want, in return for one favor." It amused him that she'd framed him buying her something has a was a favor _to_ him. Which, admittedly, it was.

"I already named Morgan after Doc."

"Talk to Steve Rogers."

His mouth thinned and he inhaled a bit of Morgan's scent. "Said all I need to say to him."

"Was there any listening involved?"

She was using shrink voice now. He should probably yell at her about that. But she was, as usual, right. “No,” he said, sounding sullen to his own ears.

“Resentment is corrosive, Tony.”

“You should make that into a sampler. Put it on a pillow.”

“Deflection is annoying, Tony.”

He grumbled under his breath. “So, what, you want to do some couples therapy with us?”

“Facilitation is often helpful in these situations.”

“And if I agree to this you’ll to California and see your family and set boundaries with the team?”

She leaned forward a little, and held out her hand.

He sighed and put a hand on Morgan’s butt to hold her still as he reached out and shook on it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"He's a checklist for PTSD and they were all acting like he was fine and just needed a change of clothes and shower before they dragged him on a time travel adventure."_

_Five Years Later_

They got lucky. They got very, very lucky.

Pepper knew people who lost some, people who lost a lot, people who lost everything. She and Tony had hit some kind of armageddon lottery. She didn't know anyone who'd lost as little as they had. Both Vision and Peter Parker hit Tony pretty hard, but all the fundamental corners of their lives were intact.

They had a child, one whose conception was nearly miraculous. He'd been rescued from death at the last minute. They moved out west and turned their company towards doing helpful, meaningful things, and still made more money than they seemed to be able to give away—and they gave away most of it. Tony even made peace with Steve Rogers. Pepper wasn't entirely sure _she_ had, but anger wasn't good for anyone, and he was on the other side of the country anyway.

Then she came one evening to burnt pot roast and takeout hot dogs. "So I had a meeting today about time travel," was what Tony greeted her with, handing her a hotdog.

"Was this a serious meeting?" she asked. Morgan was peeling the breading off a corndog and eating only that.

"It was. You remember I told you about the guy at the airport fight that grew into a giant? Turned out he didn't get snapped. He was stuck in the quantum zone."

"I. . .I don't know what that means." So he explained it to her, and then in much, much simpler terms to Morgan, who demanded to know what they were talking about. "Sounds a little like a pipe dream," she told him.

"Yeah, but I think Steve's got his teeth in it." He shrugged, stealing the dog part of the corndog off Morgan's plate. "Hard to turn down hope."

She watched him a moment. "You gonna look into it?" Asking that as a question was more courtesy than curiosity. Of course he would. Even if he thought it was a terrible idea, he would. Because it presented a challenge, something he could never resist.

"I might poke at it a bit. After the munchkin is in bed."

She stood up and leaned over to kiss the top of his head. "I'll clean the crockpot."

That was the last she heard of it for a couple of days. 

Until he came to bed one night and said, quietly, "I figured it out."

Pepper rolled over on her side to look at him. "Jesus."

"I don't know what to do with it."

She took a couple of deep breaths, knowing in her bones their little pocket of peace was about to be over. They'd pay the tax on their lottery win now. "Yes, you do."

"I don't have to. It can go in a box in a safe on the bottom of the ocean. Just because I figured out how it could work, doesn't mean it will."

It was a little painful to watch, because she knew why he hesitated. Not just about what he feared they might lose, but by reopening something he'd made peace with. He wasn't a superhero anymore. It was a little like dangling heroin in front of an addict trying to stay clean. Saving the world was his siren song. Still, she knew him better than anyone on this earth. "Would you ever get a good night's sleep again?"

"I'm sure Doc would give me opiates if I asked nicely." She could tell from his tone he knew he was losing. He'd already lost the argument with himself. Probably before he'd talked to her. "If I tell them - and it's a big if - I don't want to lose what we have."

She reached out and took his hand, covering it with both of hers. "I trust you to figure out a way that we don't."

"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay. I'll think about it. Sleep on it."

He shifted, not letting go of her hand, and stared at the ceiling. Pepper watched him for a moment, and rubbed his arm. "And by sleep, you mean lay here and spin?"

"Isn't that what everyone means by 'sleep on it'?"

She kissed his bare shoulder. "Your brain actually needs REM sleep to sort and process information. It's why things make more sense after a good night's sleep. Your brain has cleared its cache."

"Ms. Potts, you know how I get when you speak nerdy to me."

She laughed, pushing up on her elbow. "Maybe that was the point."

"Distracting me with sex," he muttered, slipping an arm around it. "Shameful. Shameful."

"I know how to turn your brain off," she said, stretching up to kiss him. "It's my superpower."

His hand slid under her shirt. "One of many."

She lifted her arms so he could pull it off. "You don't seem to be complaining."

"No, I know what I'm good for." He tossed the shirt aside and bent to kiss her breast. She hummed in pleasure, letting him pull her closer and sliding her legs along his. They knew each other like muscle memory after all these years. All she had left on was underwear that were easy to kick off.

He slid a hand between her legs, stroking her clit with two finger while pulling her nipple into his mouth at the same time. She closed her eyes, letting him turn her on and wind her up. When it felt too good to stay still, she rocked against his hand.

"That's my girl," he murmured, slipping two fingers inside her and crooking them up. 

"I, uh. . ." He knew just, exactly, perfectly how to touch her, and she ached to just give in to it. "Aren't I supposed to be distracting you?"

"I assure you I'm not thinking about whatever it is I'm not supposed to be thinking about."

She wrapped her hand around his wrist, needing it faster. "What are you thinking about?" she gasped. Though she was too close to the edge to really care about the answer.

He leaned in and kissed her, first on the mouth, then below her ear, before whispering, "How sexy you are when you come." The words, the way he said them, were the very last thing she could take. His thumb slid over her clit and she cracked, the orgasm bubbling up and washing through her.

He stroked her through it, only removing his hand when she made an effort to wiggle away from it. "Atta girl," he murmured, kissing her again. 

She wrapped her arms around him, her body feeling so liquid that it took a surprising amount of effort. He seemed content to kiss her for as long as she needed, like he usually was. When they broke for a little air, she whispered, "It'll be okay. Whatever happens."

He nodded. "I know. We'll make it work." But when he kissed her again, it felt different. Darker. Laced with desperation and fear. She met him, because she felt it, too. 

When he rolled her and pushed her onto her back it was a little rough, and she cried out when he thrust into her. She could feel him go still, and she whispered, "It's all right."

"Don't want to hurt you," he mumbled into her shoulder.

She lifted up to take him deeper, and scratched his back a little. "Harder."

He kissed her skin and obeyed, pulling out and driving back into her. She had to let go of him to brace her hands against the headboard so she didn't slide, but it felt so good. He slid his hands up her arms like he was pinning her down. "More," she told him. "Don't stop."

"Trust me," he growled. "I'm not even thinking about it."

"You're not supposed to be thinking at-" He kissed her and swallowed the words, and then she forgot them. He pushed up on one arm and reached between them to touch her. The angle changed and his fingers pressed against her clit and that was all it took. She lingered a little bit on the edge first—when she came a second time it was always slower, but longer. She whimpered and shook, and she could feel him give in, too.

He braced himself on his elbows to keep from collapsing on her entirely. For a few minutes, they panted together, both lost in the last echoes of their pleasure. Then he carefully rolled off her, pulling her up against his chest.

She tucked her head under his chin and sighed. "I love you."

"I love you back," he told her, rubbing her skin lightly.

He sounded drowsy, so she snuggled closer and whispered, "Sleep."

In the morning, he called Amanda. Two days later, they were on the jet headed for New York.

"What do you think?" she asked Amanda when Tony went to the back of the jet to tinker with his Time GPS again.

She was knitting a pair of socks for Morgan and didn't even glance up. "I think it's good for him to have an outlet and that I read too much sci fi to think too hard about the implications of time travel."

"This isn't about an engineering puzzle and you know it."

"Hence the second half of my sentence. He and Bruce tried to explain it to me a few times but. . . still seems like there's a lot of risk."

Pepper looked at her. "You helped talk him into it."

"I did. Because I think big picture it's a good idea. The world lost a lot and he has the chance to fix it. But I also want to make sure everyone is thinking through all the ramifications and being cautious. That's what I do."

"Yeah." Pepper rubbed her eyes. "They all swear time travel won't change the present."

"Their reasoning is sound to my ears, but I'm far from an expert. It's a little weird that I know someone who can just invent time travel."

She chuckled. "Yeah. Every time I think I can't be surprised by anything that comes out of Tony's head. . . I'm wrong."

She seemed to finish her row and poked her needles into the ball of yarn. "I know you helped talk him into it, too. I think we're all in agreement that it's the right thing to do. It's just. . . feels big, I guess."

"Reversing the apocalypse is big, isn't it?"

"Bringing back four billion people, also big."

She watched Morgan across the aisle, coloring with abandon. "It's going to be weird to be back there."

"The compound? Yeah. Lot of weird memories there."

"We still have the house across the lake, though it probably needs some dusting. You're welcome to come stay with us if you don't want to stay in the main building."

"I'll keep it in mind, see how I feel being back there." She glanced at Pepper. "I don't think my feelings about that place are as strong as yours."

It wasn't really the place, so much as the people. The place had, for a quite a while, been theirs. But since since the decimation it had belonged to the Avengers again. Natasha. Steve. Even Rhodey had gone to work for them, something that irked her more than she would admit. And she'd probably seem irrational to nearly everyone—the only person she ever discussed it with was Lani, because Lani was the only other person who knew what had really happened in Siberia. "It's complicated," was all she said.

Amanda nodded, not pressing, because she was good like that. She had her own painful secrets. "Much of life is, nowadays."

Their house was, in fact, filthy. Tony paid somebody to maintain the exterior, but not clean the inside, and five years of dust coated every single surface. Amanda and Lani were pretty bored at the moment as they had no real involvement in the massive engineering and quantum physics project spinning up across the lake, and came over to help her with her massive cleaning undertaking.

One morning, they didn't come until early afternoon, and were clearly aggravated about something they were loudly agreeing with each other over as they got out of the car. A boat across the lake was faster, but Amanda wasn't a fan.

Pepper heard Tony's name among the muffled exclaiming, and wasn't at all surprised. She went out to the porch. "Are you here for permission to make me a widow?"

"Auntie Mandy! Auntie Lani!" Morgan called, sprinting around from the side yard like she hadn't seen them in weeks.

She leapt into Lani's lap and Amanda looked up at Pepper. "No, no, he knows full well what PTSD and alcoholism look like. The rest of them need a smack in the head."

Pepper raised her eyebrows. "Hey, Morg, can you go play? Mommy needs to talk to your aunts."

She pouted extravagantly but ran off to finish whatever escapade she was on. Pepper looked back at the ladies expectantly.

"Bruce and Rocket came back with Thor," Lani said. "He's in a bad way."

Amanda was never one to speak in euphemisms. "He's put on probably a hundred pounds, hasn't groomed, and appears to be drinking 24/7."

"Wow," Pepper said. "Yeah." She inclined her head to indicate they should come inside. She got a couple of glasses of iced tea. "I recall him being pretty together after you guys came back from Wakanda. Though he wasn't here long." A few days after the snap, the ship full of the surviving Asgardian refugees dropped into orbit, and he left to get them settled on land he apparently owned in Norway. He'd come back when Carol showed up, and left again after they killed Thanos.

"Bruce said when he mentioned Thanos's name Thor got visibly upset and vaguely threatening." Lani sipped her tea. "He's a checklist for PTSD and they were all acting like he was fine and just needed a change of clothes and shower before they dragged him on a time travel adventure."

"Lani and I informed them of their wrongness."

"Bruce is a doctor," Pepper said. "You'd think he'd know better. Though I guess he's only half Bruce now."

Amanda got up to refill her glass. "It sounded like he managed to calm him down when he was upset. Which is more than I can say for the raccoon. And he got him here, where at least he has a chance to get help."

"Well, hey, now you guys have something to do, right?"

"More Lani than me. Sounds like Asgardians don't have to worry about DTs."

Lani leaned forward to see around Amanda and said, "I do need a favor of you, Pepper."

"Anything."

"There's a woman from the Asgardian refugees coming over. She's a recovering alcoholic herself and is going to provide some help with this endeavor. But she doesn't want to stay in the big house."

"You want her to stay here?"

"If it's all right with you. Her name is Valkyrie. Bruce said he got to know her when he was on the ark."

"I don't mind. Can she clean?"

"I don't see why not."

Two days later, Pepper had herself a new houseguest. She was nice, not terribly chatty, and willing to pitch in with all sorts of tasks. Valkyrie volunteered to scrub the kitchen and pulled out all the appliances and stacked them in the dining room like empty cardboard boxes. Pepper had forgotten just how strong Asgardians were.

Some evenings she'd make herself scarce, taking one of the cars and going who knew where. Sometimes she hung around, telling Morgan long, strange Asgardian legends and teaching Tony a complicated card game she'd learned on a planet called Sakaar.

The weather was awful, because that was what happened apparently when you put the God of Thunder through rehab. One very bad storm the roof started leaking, and Valkyrie climbed up there to fix the shingles in the pouring rain, because Tony was working late.

"Coffee? Tea? Hot cocoa?" Pepper asked as she stood in the kitchen trying to dry off. "Something hot to drink might be nice."

"I have no idea what hot cocoa is," Valkyrie replied.

"That's a crime. Go sit, I'll bring it out." Pepper made it the old fashioned way, because she was not a heathen, and then brought two mugs out to the living room. The fireplace was on, so it was toasty. "I can't believe Thor never introduced you to this. He used to make it all the time when we all lived in the tower."

Valkyrie reached for the mug. "Yeah, well, he doesn't drink anything that doesn't have alcohol in it. Or didn't, anyway."

"I remember those days," Pepper said. "Tony went through a period where he never met an intoxicating substance he didn't want. And fucked any woman that smiled at him."

"I did that for a long, long time," she replied. "Booze and meaningless sex." 

"If you don't mind my asking, why did you stop?"

"Mmm? Drinking and fucking?" She sighed, and stared down at her hot cocoa like it contained answers. Pepper was about to retract the question when she said, "Was reminded what it's like when it's not meaningless. And then somebody told me they needed me. To help save our people, build a colony, keep everyone from giving up. It was a task too big to carry alone." She took a slug of her drink, like it might have something more in it. "And then he dropped it all on me and retreated into a keg of ale. Irony is many a splendored thing."

"That also sounds familiar," Pepper said. "Tony had a terminal illness, which he decided to not tell me about, but did put me in charge of his entire corporation and then hid in the basement."

Valkyrie snorted. "Clearly mine took pages from yours' book."

"Took us a long time to sort it out. A long time. And Lani."

"I think our window for sorting it out passed a long time ago.

Pepper wasn't one to be overly optimistic about troubled relationships. But she liked Valkyrie, and Thor, most of the time, so she offered, "You have long lives to sort."

"I suppose." She drank more hot cocoa. "I didn't come to fix things. I came because I hate to watch what he's doing to himself, and also nobody with that much power should be that out of control. Worst fight we ever had ended in the lightning accidentally blowing up our house."

That was something that hadn't even occurred to her. "Thor always seemed so indestructible. I mean, emotionally, not just physically. It's hard seeing him like this."

"The strongest dams hold back the most water, but they still have have an upper limit. When it's reached and they finally give way, the flood is that much worse."

Pepper nodded. "I hope he gets better. He's a good man."

You could hear a couple of millennia in her sigh. "Yeah, he is."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Do I want to do it? No. Am I okay with doing it? No. Is it a bullet I'm willing to take for a couple billion people? Yeah."_

The time machine was coming along nicely. Tony was particularly proud of it, as it was awesome even for him. Challenging in the way he hadn't been challenged in a while. He could get into it, and get in a zone.

"Boss," FRIDAY said. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but your house across the lake is on fire."

He lost his grip on the soldering iron he was holding, and—ironically—burned his hand a little. "What? Are you running fire suppression? Where are Pepper and Morgan."

"It's the roof and one of the trees. Your wife and daughter are at the store."

And this was why he still wore the reactor and nannite housing, though by the time he was in the suit and in the air over the lake, it was raining a small, localized monsoon and the fire was out.

He landed next to Thor and Valkyrie, who were standing outside, watching the fire sputter out, looking vaguely guilty. "Would someone like to explain?" he asked as calmly as he could.

"I'm sorry," Thor said. "It was an accident."

Valkyrie turned and glared at him. "You don't get this shit under control, you're going to kill somebody."

"Well, I've already killed more people than anyone can count, right?"

She looked like she was going to hit him, and Tony did not think an Asgardian fist fight could happen without property damage. He had some experience with being drunk and angry and wrecking the house. 

"Thor. Buddy. You want to come for a walk with me?"

Tony could see him consider, but he could clearly see being beaten senseless was his other option, so he nodded. Valkyrie turned on her heel and marched back to the house, and the monsoon stopped abruptly.

He retracted the suit and gave Thor's arm a gentle tug. "C'mon big guy. Little fresh air will help."

After a moment, he came along. Tony had the urge to take the man shopping—he was wearing crocs, for God's sake. Maybe Pepper could order him some new clothes. "You know, I'm not actually drunk right now," Thor said.

"Good," he replied, meaning it. Then, after weighing his options, he asked, "What were you fighting about?"

"Nothing we should've been. What she does with herself has ceased to be my business."

Well, there was certainly a lot to unpack in that sentence. "Seeing your ex is never easy. Worse when you're not over them and trying to be friends."

"What makes you think I'm not over her?" he asked, though Tony could see on his face even he knew that was a bullshit question.

"Alcohol is really good for drowning emotions. Not so good for working through them. You're not over her, because emotionally, you broke up last week."

He kicked a rock, and in embedded itself in a tree trunk a dozen feet away. "She put up with me far longer than she should have." 

"I have often joked about making that Pepper's epitaph."

"You and her seem to have made it work."

"She has the patience of a saint. And I did a lot of work on myself. To get to the bottom of my self-sabotage."

"I know full well what is at the bottom of mine." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie—which needed replacing even more than the shoes. "Lani insists that's an improvement over being 'fine', though it's clearly wreaking havoc on the weather."

"Well," Tony said. "The lake will be nice and full for the summer."

He chuckled, then said, "I truly am sorry about your house. I did not intend that."

"I know. I've trashed plenty myself, way more drunk then you currently are. Houses get rebuilt."

"How she feels about me has been more than earned. And I believe it to be far past the possibility repair. But. . . look at what we are trying to do. One never knows what the future brings."

Tony took a deep breath and tipped his head back to look up at the sky. "Life is full of chances."

That afternoon, he and Pepper and Morgan had to move across the lake into the big building until they could fix their house. He knew Pepper wasn't thrilled about it, but she didn't complain.

"Is there anything I could have done that would have made you just call it quits once and for all?" he asked her that night as they were getting ready for bed.

Pepper had a toothbrush in her mouth, and took it out to say, "Irrevocably? Hit me. Fuck another woman in our bed." She resumed brushing, and he couldn't help but wonder if that meant she'd have forgiven another woman as long as it was elsewhere.

"That's a pretty short list," he commented, because that was a line of questioning not worth pursuing.

She spit in the sink and rinsed her mouth. "I assumed going in there would be other women. They threw themselves at you—still do, actually. And you weren't exactly Captain Impulse-Control back then."

"I do enjoy defying expectations."

Pepper leaned against the counter. "Not ever?"

"Not since we began, no. Not once."

She smiled that way she did sometimes that made her look young. "Well, good."

"Thor and Valkyrie are. . . uncomfortably familiar."

"Oh, God, yes they are. In a 'there but for the grace of god' sort of way."

"Yeah. Couldn't even be mad at him about the roof. I'm sure if one of us had lightning powers we'd have started a few fires."

Pepper laughed. "Yeah, probably." She turned to wash her face. Pepper had a skin care routine that seemed to have about 86 steps to it. "I would have zapped you the time you told me if I was younger we wouldn't have trouble getting pregnant. You'd have zapped me the time I told you you reminded me of Howard."

"Most definitely." Those were probably the most hurtful things they'd said to each other, over the course of their admittedly rocky relationship. "We'd both have deserved it."

She was rubbing in some sort of product out of one of her many jars. "The worst things are always the ones that are kind of true."

"Well, yeah. It's not bad unless it hits a button. And those get installed for a reason."

"You don't, you know. Parent like Howard. I thought it might leak out a little bit now and again, but it really doesn't."

He smiled. "Thanks. I try to catch myself before I talk."

Pepper put on her last layer of lotion, and turned off the vanity light. "Valkyrie and I had a conversation about relationship tipping points, and it got me really thinking about our various ups and downs. If I look at it very honestly. . . what happened in Siberia is the reason you and I are still together."

His brows went up. They hadn't spoken about that much, mainly because he didn't like to think about it. He'd made his peace with Steve, best he could. Life was too short to carry that kind of resentment around. "Pity?" he clarified, only half joking.

"That weekend we were trapped in the house together because you were too beat up to move, and I couldn't go outside because you accidentally gave me a black eye when I tried to wake you from a nightmare." He remembered. He still felt awful about that. "I was, I think, just about done with you. Just like at my human capacity for taking any more bullshit. I was far more angry than sympathetic." 

"We had some good conversations that weekend."

"You actually listened to me. Took in what I said and did something with it. Which was honestly a first. You did something I told you I needed--instead of what you'd decided I needed."

"Something to be said for hitting rock bottom." He pulled the covers back so she could climb in. "Doc finding Lani made a difference. Never thought I'd find someone willing to pick me apart without being overwhelmed by my Tony Stark-ness."

"We probably owe her quite a bit of credit, too."

He spread his hands. "I keep trying to buy her things."

Pepper laughed as she curled up against him.

Once the time machine was viable—Clint did a test run—they turned their attention toward logistics. Where the stones were, and how to get them. And what to do with them once they did.

"If I'm being very honest," Lani said. "The most psychologically healthy option is to undo the snap entirely. Erase what happened, redo the last five years."

"I have a major problem with that," Tony said. "Her name is Morgan and she's four."

"I know. I'm just telling you all my professional opinion. The half of the universe that survived has been profoundly traumatized. A lot of people died for lack of care, and at one point suicide was the leading cause of death. There are entire worlds that were consumed and destroyed by war. You don't undo any of that damage just bringing people back. There's a strong argument to be made that it might make everything even worse."

"Pepper was pregnant when the snap happened," Amanda pointed out. "She found out the day Carol brought you back."

Tony looked over at her. "Are you saying we just. . . do over raising our kid?"

She lifted a shoulder. "I know it sucks. But it's not losing her completely. And Lani makes a very good point about the implications of just magicking everyone back to life."

"No offense, Doc, but you're not a parent. Sucks doesn't even begin to describe it."

"I am," Scott said. "And I'd do it."

"So would I," Clint said. "Don't know how rational I am on this topic, but if we needed to roll time back to when Laura was pregnant with Nate to. . . stop Ultron, or something, I'd do it."

"Well, that's you, not me." He sounded like an asshole and he knew it. But none of them had fought to get their kids the way he and Pepper had. "I will talk to Pepper," he said. "But I doubt she'll be on board."

"If you guys want to talk it out, or she wants more detail. . ." Lani said.

"I know where to find you," he said, managing to keep it gentle.

None of them were going to be able to concentrate on anything else while this was dangling, and anyway he was likely to pick a fight if he sat and stewed. So he went looking for his wife.

She was out in the back getting a little sunshine—Thor was apparently in a good mood today—while Morgan ran around on the grass. 

"The test run, was successful," he told Pepper, standing next to her.

"Really? You look like something went terribly wrong."

He blew out a breath. "We has a discussion about logistics. For fixing things once we get the stones. Lani pointed out that the best, least damaging solution, is to rewind the world so that the Snap never happened."

"Live the last five years over again?"

"Basically. I pointed out I didn't want to do that because of Morgan. Doc assures me you'd be pregnant."

Pepper seemed to consider this. "She told me once your dream might not have been a coincidence. That I felt or smelled or tasted different and you unconsciously knew what it was. And that was before."

He blinked. "Are. . . are you okay with this?"

"Okay is way too strong a word."

"But you're considering it?"

"There is a difference in the loss. In missing someone you know you will see again, and someone you never will." She blew out a breath. "We know she was healthy because she was born, and we know I can carry her safely for the same reason. There is no reason at all to think I might somehow lose her. I certainly won't be under such tremendous stress. But she will be inside me. I will never be without her. In a few months I will be able to feel her. Your wait is longer." She looked at him. "Do I want to do it? No. Am I okay with doing it? No. Is it a bullet I'm willing to take for a couple billion people? Yeah."

He blew out a breath, then pulled her close to kiss her temple. "You're a way better person than me, you know that?"

She sighed. "I think men's idea of heroism is to sacrifice yourself and die in glory. Women's is to grit your teeth and survive and make something of the rubble left behind." She took his hand. "Like giving birth, we do the harder stuff."

"You are amazing and awesome," he agreed, kissing her. "I'll tell them we're. . . well, not okay. But we'll do it."

"I want to be with you when you guys do it," she said. "That's my condition. I want to remember."

He nodded. "Deal."

*

The night before the mission to get the stones, Pepper and Tony let Morgan come in and sleep between them in their bed. Neither of them wanted to take their eyes off her. In the morning, she and Happy would go down to the city for a trip to a children's museum, getting her out of the blast radius should something go wrong.

They both knew that when they put her in that car, they'd see her again in nine months, as a newborn laid on Pepper's chest.

It was terrifying, and hurt more than Pepper had imagined when she'd agreed to this. Right now it was just. . . very real.

Tony reached across the pillows to stroke her hair. "You okay?"

"I think the next year is going to be hard."

"It is," he agreed. "But we know what the light at the end will be."

"I know." She stroked Morgan's hair. "Maybe I can have a damn epidural this time."

He laughed. "I think we'd all be in favor of that."

"Please be careful tomorrow," she said. "I'm going to need you."

"I know," he said quietly. He leaned over to kiss her. "We've come this far. We'll make it the last little bit."

In the morning, Pepper hugged Morgan has hard as she possibly could, inhaling her scent like she might forget it. Maybe she would. Tony gave her lots of kisses and promised he loved her 3000. Then they strapped her in with Happy and waved goodbye.

"It'll be okay," he said softly, hugging Pepper to him.

She pressed her face into his shoulder and just breathed for a moment. "Okay," she said finally.

Pepper sat with Amanda and Lani and Valkyrie while the rest of them went back in time. Tony kissed her like he was going to war before climbing up the platform. They weren't gone very long. When they came back, they had all six stones, Mjolnir, a winged horse. . . and were missing Natasha.

She had sacrificed her life in return for the soul stone.

There had been a time when Pepper and Nat had been friends, but that was long ago. They'd ended up on opposite sides of the Great Schism. They were friendly, professional, and Pepper had liked her as a person.

The boys all took it hard, and Pepper and Amanda forcefully herded them outside incase Thor was upset enough lighting would happen. They'd need some time to yell at each other. Then Pepper went back to help Valkyrie catch the pegasus now running loosing in the big hangar and get it outside. 

The sky outside was full of dark, ominous clouds, and a dry wind. It looked like tornado weather.

The pegasus decided it wanted to fly around a bit, and the both stood there just watching. "Funny, I've gotten so I can tell his mood by the weather," Valkyrie said.

Pepper knew what she meant. "It's not exactly subtle," she noted.

"I repeated some legends about how to get the soul stone. Either they've changed in the last couple millennia, or I was wrong. Natasha went because of my instructions. I was here to give them because of him. Hence," she pointed at the sky. "Guilt. If I had to guess."

"Lot of that going around," Pepper said. "They're all going to blame themselves, somehow. But Nat was an Avenger. She was a hero." She shook her head. "I think she always expected to go out on a mission."

"I am well familiar with that. And I am sure she is being welcomed in Valhalla." She turned to watch the pegasus fly by. "I was the sole survivor of a large battle. Dying in glory is a better than surviving sometimes."

"It's hard to be the one left behind."

Valkyrie whistled, and the pegasus slowly circled down to them. "I can't believe he stole this for me."

"It's very romantic, in its way."

"Yeah." She rubbed the pegasus's muzzle when it approached her. "So they are erasing the last five years? Because I don't know if I have it in me to do that over."

"They are. But they believe everyone not in the room will forget. To them the snap will have never happened."

"That might help. Get my heart broken again, of course, but I won't see it coming. But we'll have to build New Asgard again, maybe it's better not to be carrying all this baggage."

"I want to be there. So I remember Morgan, no matter what happens. But forgetting has its appeal."

"I suppose I've helped all I can, anyway." She brushed the pegasus's mane. "I'm going to go say goodbye inside, and then head home." She hesitated. "Please don't let him put that glove on. I know he'll want to, but he can barely control his own lightning."

Pepper nodded. "I think the rest of them know that, too."

After she left, Pepper went back inside, to see everyone coming back inside. Tony just about fell into her, and she hugged him tight.

"Didn't see that coming," he mumbled into her shoulder.

"I know," she whispered, rubbing his back. "I'm so sorry."

He nodded. "We gotta make this work."

"You will." She leaned back to look at him. "You're Tony Fucking Stark. You've got this."

"Yeah. Yeah." He blew out a breath and nodded. "Okay. I have a gauntlet to build."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Despite the army, the actual god, and the woman with the power of one, it came down to him. One reckless human in a suit of armor. He didn't even need Strange's signal to know._

The gauntlet worked perfectly. The snap worked perfectly. It didn't even kill Bruce. Tony had a sum total of five minutes to enjoy this, before the god damn building blew up.

He was more grateful than he'd ever been for anything in his entire life that he'd insisted Pepper put on Amanda's Dr. Death suit, because there was no way a bombing like that was survivable by a normal person without that level of protection. God knew how many people just died. 

"Anybody on comms, check in!"

Pepper was the first one to respond back, "I'm okay, just buried."

_Oh. Thank God._

"Mayday, mayday." That was Rhodey. "We're on the lower levels, we're drowning. Does anybody copy."

Tony's gut clenched and he started scanning the floor, trying to decide if tunneling down would make it worse.

"Wait." It took him a second to recognize Scott's voice. "I'm here. I'm coming. Do you hear me?"

It didn't sound like Rhodey heard him, but Tony could hear both of them. There was no real way for him to get down there from where he was without destabilizing things. Trusting Scott was in a better position to help, Tony climbed out of the hole to get a better look at the situation.

"Not dead yet," Amanda said. "And I can see Pepper. I am thinking about quitting, though."

"How am I in a suit?" That was Lani, and until that moment Tony hadn't known if the emergency suit her hover chair could convert into actually worked. "And what happened?" She'd chosen to duck out of the room and not remember the 5 years they were rolling back. So this had to be _really_ confusing to her.

"A homicidal alien from the past shot us," Tony said, eyeing the ship hovering above the now razed field.

"Yeah," Amanda said. "I quit."

"I found them!" Scott called. "We're all okay."

Tony spotted Cap's shield in the rubble, and then found Steve himself, beaten up but not dead either. They ended up standing outside on a ledge with Thor, looking down at Thanos just. . . sitting there.

They all knew what they needed to do. Thor called the lightning on purpose, and on the other side of the flash he had both his weapons and was suddenly cleaned up and wearing armor. Which was good. Tony really hadn't wanted to go into battle with someone wearing crocs.

"Let's kill him properly, this time," Thor said, a sentiment Tony heartily agreed with.

The three of them made their way down to where Thanos sat. He started monologuing when they got there, which was annoying, but bought time.

As long as they were fighting him, they were keeping him busy and not getting the glove. And his yapping about how he was going to destroy the entire universe this time allowed them to get into position to fight.

They got to make use of one of Tony's favorite moves, which was Thor using the lighting to overcharge his suit. It almost overpowered Thanos, but almost wasn't enough, and he flung Tony into a hunk of granite so hard it knocked him out.

When he woke, for a moment he though he had a head injury so severe he was hallucinating. Because one side of the horizon was now filled with Thanos's army, and the other side was filled a bunch of Strange's portals, opening to allow entire armies--multiple armies, with air support, come right through. He could hear the Wakandan war chant.

As he sat up, stunned, Pepper landed in front of him in her suit—superhero landing and all.

"You're seeing this too, right?" he asked her, slowly getting to his feet.

She flipped her visor up. "If this was your brain concocting things while you die, I'd be in a gold bikini."

"You make an excellent point." He blew out a breath and rolled his neck. "Okay. Let's get this guy." 

Pepper grinned at him, and the faceplate flipped down. Weapons sprouted from various places on the suit.

She was entirely correct about the gold bikini, but if he was honest this was hot as all get out.

They took their places in the line up and at Steve's word, they charged.

It was chaos, but for the first time he actually had hope they might win. All their heavy hitters were back, plus a couple honest-to-God armies. And it was amazingly fun fighting back to back with Pepper. Why hadn't he made her a suit ages ago?

Scott turned himself into a giant again when liberating Rhodey and others from the sub basement and was now stomping around the battlefield. Tony got tossed and watched him lumber for a moment while his ears stopped ringing.

Suddenly Peter Parker was standing over him, helping him up and then rambling on excitedly about space and dusting and Strange's portals. He hadn't allowed himself to really explore it, but watching this kid die had been a whole lot of why he'd worked so hard to fix it.

Reaching out, he stepped forward and pulled Peter into a tight hug.

"Uh. Oh. This is nice." Peter sounded very surprised.

The next task was running the gauntlet across the battlefield to the quantum tunnel in Scott's van to sent the stones back in time. Clint had it at the moment, and Tony was honestly very surprised he was still alive, considering he'd fallen in the rubble.

While that was going on, Tony ran into Strange. "Hey. You said one out of 14 million we win, yeah? Tell me this is it."

Strange looked at him seriously. "If I tell you want happens, it won't happen."

The guy was a wizard, so he loved to be that sort of vague, but Tony had an inkling what that meant. If he couldn't know it, it was something _he_ did. Probably something so stupid and/or dangerous Strange didn't want him to have time to think about it.

Like flying a live nuke into a portal in the sky.

And in the end, of course, that's exactly what it was. Despite the army, the actual God, and the woman with the power of one, it came down to him. One reckless human in a suit of armor. He didn't even need Strange's signal to know.

Thanos, like most people, had trouble thinking outside the box. All his focus was on the glove. So much so that he didn't even notice Tony slip out the stones until it was too late. He had to pause to deliver his sanctimonious one-liner. "I am. . . inevitable."

_No, you fucking shithead, you absolutely are not._

The stones settled into the gauntlet of his suit, the nannites that had pulled them from Thanos making settings for them. Until it was its own Infinity Gauntlet, and the stones began to light up. It was the most painful thing he'd ever felt, searing white hot up his arm. For a terrible moment he feared it would overwhelm him and kill him before he could snap. It would anyway, of course, but he only needed long enough to get his burning fingers to move.

Still, he found time for his own one liner. "And I." He paused, taking a breath to steady himself. He felt something hit his ankle, but couldn't risk looking down. "Am. . . Iron Man."

He snapped, wanting Thanos and his army gone. For their allies to be safe and sound. For Morgan to live a long happy life. He didn't have time or wherewithal to form a coherent wish, but hoped the stones were as powerful as they were supposed to be and would just know somehow.

White hot pain blazed through him, shorting out his suit. It shot up his arm and through his body, down all the way to his ankle. He collapsed with the force of it, but realized it was slowly lessening, thinning out in waves.

He opened his eyes, and there was Amanda. Holding his damn ankle. Behind her there was a line of people like a human chain, white light racing from one to the other as they all shared the burden, the energy his body wouldn't have been able to bear alone. At the far end, he could see it shoot through Valkyrie's winged horse and hit a large group of people behind her. They had to be Asgardian for the speed they sucked the energy away like opening up a drain.

When he looked at Amanda again, she had her faceplate up and met his eyes. "And _we_ are Avengers."

He grinned at her. She was never going to let him hear the end of this.

One reckless human, and whole bunch of his stupid friends.

The pain returned, seemingly everywhere _but_ his arm, which he could no longer feel at all below the elbow. He felt dizzy and laid down, letting Doc do her thing. She somehow swapped their suits, and then told him she had to cut off his arm. She gave him medication that helped with the pain, and made him not care so much about the whole amputation thing.

Pepper appeared in his field of vision. She looked very upset, so he tried to reassure her. "I always wanted to be a Civil War re-enactor." He hummed a few bars of 'Battle Hymn of the Republic', too, but she wasn't paying attention.

They were talking about Steve being down, and Amanda's face was full of stress. He did not want a half-ass amputation.

"Strange," he said, lifting his arm to point. Except that was the arm being cut off. And now Danvers was standing on his shoulder. Being held down during your amputation was full Civil War.

_Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord._

"Strange. He's a doctor. For Steve." They had their problems, but he didn't want Steve to die.

_He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored._

Pepper went away, which made him sad. He loved her. And her in that suit was hot. He might need to change the color when Amanda took it back, because she was not someone he wanted to accidentally have dirty thoughts about.

It was cold out here. He needed to turn the suit's heater on.

She was using the laser torch he'd made her, to cut off his arm. And to think she'd scoffed. "I knew you'd use that eventually." And she admitted he was smart.

_He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword._

Lighting guy, what was his name? He'd torched their roof. Somebody else had a sword.

Amanda was cursing.

"BP is 90 over 66. Heartbeat erratic."

Cold air blew on his face, which was not okay. He was cold enough as it was. Cold and dark, because his eyes wouldn't open anymore. People were yapping about the national guard. He was done with war.

"Good job," someone told him, and it seemed okay to sleep.

*

In the middle of amputating Tony's arm, Amanda had ordered Pepper to take her Dr. Death suit—still full of medical equipment—over to where Dr. Strange was working on Steve. She'd never wanted to do anything less in her entire life.

But, life was not about what she wanted. What she needed was for Amanda to save his life, without distractions, and so she went to help Strange deal with Steve and then, she assumed, the other wounded.

Strange used Pepper's hands and a defibrillator, and got Steve's heart beating correctly again. She was then tied to him by tubes and wires providing oxygen and monitoring from various ports in the suit. There was some way to get her suit off and put it on him like Amanda had done with Tony, but Pepper didn't know how and didn't want to mess with it. So she sat there by Steve's head, watching Amanda work a dozen yards away.

A couple of super-powered people and Asgardians were holding the human chain at this point, so the rest of them didn't need to. "I'm going to go assess the wounded on the field," Sam said. Pepper remembered he'd been a pararescue for the army. "The Wakandan Army will have a full medical corps, but not likely any of the others. We can coordinate."

"My emergency medicine experience is minimal," Strange told him. "But I'll help as I can."

Amanda got Tony's arm off. Pepper couldn't quite see it, but she could see the weird glow around all of them finally stop. Carol Danvers bent to pick up the glove.

Sam returned, looking more stunned than anything else, and Pepper wondered how bad it was.

"There are no wounded. And no bodies. The Wakandan medics set up a field hospital at the back of their lines and everyone inside it was suddenly healed, at the same time the enemies all dusted."

Pepper felt tears in her eyes, and closed them. Of course he'd done that. Steve and Thor, for all their worthiness—Steve had been carting around Mjolnir for most of the battle—were soldiers, military leaders. They accepted battlefield casualties as a tragic necessity of a just war. Tony never, ever had. 

"Tony's stable," Amanda said on the comms, sounding tired.

Relief washed through her, along with more tears. It took her a moment to talk normally. "Thank you." She looked at Strange, who nodded, then added, "So is Steve."

A couple of Wakandan doctors came over to what were apparently the only wounded on the field, taking over Steve from Strange, and bringing their own equipment so Pepper could get out of her suit. Rhodey was out of his suit, and he hugged her when she got there. "He's okay, Pep."

"I know, I know." She couldn't think how close it had been. _Again_.

He held onto her, rubbing her back while everyone else moved around them. Eventually, Amanda came over. "Hey, I'm having Tony and Steve taken down to New York Pres. I assume you want to fly down with us."

"Absolutely." She squeezed Rhodey's arm, and followed Amanda. 

The medics in the helicopter were impressed by the support the suit was providing, and spent the flight being excited to meet Doc and ask a thousand questions about the famous hospital suit. They'd rolled back time, so seeing one was still rare. In the future they were nearly standard issue.

It wasn't until they were actually in Burn Unit/ICU that the entire suit was removed and Pepper got to see just how badly he was burned. The burns looked horrifying, and covered much of the right side of his body, but Amanda seemed very happy with it.

"The vast majority will heal without skin grafts," was what she told Pepper before leaving Tony to rest and wait for the specialists.

Pepper's phone was ringing, and when she saw it was Happy she went out into the hallway to answer. "Hi," she answered with. "Yes, there was a battle at the compound. Thanos is defeated and everyone is okay. Well, Tony's in the hospital, but we're okay."

The time reversal had taken the to 3 weeks after the snap, but the snap had clearly not happened, so Pepper honestly had no idea what anyone else knew, or what happened in those missing weeks. Except that she was sure the giant battle had probably been on the news at this point.

"Well, that's good," he said. "Not about the hospital, but given the pictures on the news I was expecting much worse. What state is Tony in? Should I bring the munchkin to come see him or keep entertaining her?"

"Munchkin?" Pepper asked. He couldn't possibly. . .

"I say hi to Mommy!" came the little voice in the background. _Morgan._

Pepper's knees gave out. If there hadn't been a chair behind her, she would have gone straight to the floor. "Y-yes," she managed, her voice and her hands shaking. "Bring her here. He's unconscious right now but I want to see her."

She went down to meet them, because she wanted to see her daughter the very first moment she could. She stood in the lobby, watching through the glass doors as Happy pulled up to the valet in the Bentley she and Tony had owned back before the snap. He got out, and then helped Morgan out of the back, from a carseat that was clearly permanently installed. Pepper remembered—from the future—when Tony had built that. It was bolted into the car's frame.

She didn't understand, but it didn't matter, because Morgan was running through the doors and she crouched down to wrap her in her arms. Being put together and dignified in public was so much a thing for Pepper it was nearly a personality trait. But here she was, sitting on the ground in the middle of a hospital lobby in a sweat-stained tank top, hugging her daughter and crying into her hair.

Happy appeared at her side a moment later and crouched, touching her shoulder. "Hey. Hey, you okay?"

She wiped her eyes and her snotty nose. "I am wonderful."

Morgan looked up at her. "Mommy, don't cry. Uncle Happy said we could get ice cream."

"You can have all the ice cream you want," Pepper told her. Happy, still looking baffled, helped her up. "Why don't you take her to the cafeteria for that," Pepper said to him. "We're on the 8th in the burn unit. I'll go up and see if they'll let her in or not, so he can see her when he wakes up."

He nodded, clearly concerned about her. But he took Morgan's hand. "Come on, kiddo. First ice cream, then Daddy."

The burn unit had it's own waiting room, and when Pepper went by, she saw it was absolutely packed with Avengers. She didn't know how they'd gotten here so fast, but was touched to see them. All she could do at the moment was wave as she passed. 

In Tony's room, she talked to a bunch of doctors, all of whom addressed her as Mrs. Stark despite them having not been married in 2018. But then, Morgan was here, so who knew?

Amanda came back to check on them, and was absolutely delighted to see Morgan when she appeared.

"We can check when he's awake," Amanda said, "But I'm guessing Tony wanted her back and added that onto his snap. Or wish, or whatever we're calling it. He healed everybody on the battlefield that was injured or dead, too. I know I saw some people fall, and by the time Sam could check, there were no casualties."

That sounded crazy, but also entirely correct. You handed Tony a moment of infinite power, and that was what he asked for. End the war without bloodshed, and go home to his family.

Amanda thought it would be at least a couple hours until Tony was awake, so Pepper decided to go update the waiting room crowd and then figure out what to do with herself and Morgan. I hotel room was probably the best idea.

"Should I take her back to the house?" Happy asked.

Pepper turned. "I think the entire compound it a smoking crater right now."

"No, I mean here, in the Village."

She stared at him. "We have a house in Greenwich Village?" Tony occasionally made noises about buying an Upper East Side townhouse like the one his parents had owned and he'd ruthlessly sold without even packing after their deaths. Or sky-high penthouse on Billionaires Row that he'd talk himself out of because it reminded him too much of the view from Stark Tower. But. . . the Village?

Happy was looking at her like he was seriously concerned about her sanity.

"Okay," she said. "We were doing something involving space magic, dimensions, and time travel. So I'm going to have some gaps, but I promise you I'm not nuts."

"You remember that time in our lives when you having some sort of amnesia was less crazy than time travel and space magic?"

She laughed. "Vaguely. I'm going to go talk to the rest of the team, and perhaps invite everyone to come home and order some pizza. How many bedrooms do we have?"

"Eight or nine, I think."

Big house, clearly. "Right." 

She went into the waiting room, packed beyond its capacity, and everyone looked up. "Hi. Tony and Steve are both stable, and we're hogging the whole waiting room. I have a house downtown, plenty of space, how about everyone come back for some food and rest and showers?"

"That sounds great," Sam said. He'd clearly taken the lead. "Give us the address and I'll rally a caravan."

After they all headed off, she went up to see Tony one more time before leaving herself. He was still out cold, but she wanted to kiss his forehead and tell him goodnight. 

She hoped, she hoped, she hoped that this was the last time they were ever going to do this. Given how badly he was injured, that almost had to be true. But then, Rhodey still fought with a broken back.

A giant stack of pizza boxes was being delivered when she arrived at what was apparently her house, a tall brownstone clearly from sometime in the 19th century. Happy took the boxes in the marble-lined front hall, and she followed him through to the living room. It was decorated all in white and cream, and full of dirty, soot-covered, exhausted warriors that Pepper was happy to have ruin her carpet and furniture. 

"Pepper," Lani said from her left, and when Pepper turned she was startled to find the other woman eye level. "What-?" She looked down and Lani was hovering upright in the bottom half of an Iron Man suit.

"It won't turn back into a chair," she said, giving it a rap with her knuckles. "Rhodey helped me get the top off."

"We'll get you a manual chair and then we can take it apart. Have some pizza, I'll put Happy on it." You could buy anything somewhere in New York City.

Pepper made her way around the room, meeting Rocket's people for the first time, including a tree that said only "I am Groot."

The world was so much stranger a place than she'd ever known.

Vision had somehow survived, without the stone in his head and seemingly none the worse for the wear. He was clearly surprised by the ferocity Pepper hugged him with. She met Hope, Scott's girlfriend, who seemed delighted the quantum tunnel had apparently contributed to saving the world. She'd tell Hope later she was also the reason Scott had fought so hard to convince them to try in the first place. Tony was not remotely an easy man to argue with.

Thor was sitting on the floor by them, next to the fireplace someone had lit. It was startling to see him looking like he did years ago, fighting shape and close cropped hair. He also had Valkyrie draped across his lap, napping while he picked the tangles out of her hair.

"There seem to be all manner of second chances in this endeavor," he said when he looked up.

Today really was a good day. "You want some pizza?"

"I would like an entire pizza," he told her solemnly.

"On it."

Food and drinks got passed around. Morgan managed a couple slices and made the rounds before falling asleep in Rhodey's lap. Pepper wished Tony could see this. What he'd made happen.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He was pretty sure no conversation he'd ever had with Amanda Newbury had horrified her as much as the one they'd had that morning about what qualified as "exercise"._

So his right hand was gone.

Tony had woken up in the middle of the night, and got to spend some time alone with this realization. His right hand was gone, and his left arm had such significant nerve damage that it's fine motor skills weren't the best. This was a concerning situation. How would he make a prosthetic if he didn't have and fingers that could operate a tiny screwdriver? He was also pretty sure he couldn't hear out of his right ear.

Not to mention _everything_ hurt.

A nurse came in after that, fussed with his IV lines and then the morphine hit. 

When he opened his eyes again, the arm was still gone. But Pepper was in the chair beside his bed.

He sighed and smiled. "Hey."

She looked up from her book and grinned. "Hey. Good morning."

"How's everything?"

"Pretty good. Hang on." She picked up her phone and typed on it, which he frowned at. Maybe she was texting people he was awake. He wasn't sure he felt like seeing people. Then her phone began ringing, the particular chime for an incoming video call. Pepper hit the button and turned it to face him. 

He felt a thread of panic, because absolutely didn't want to talk to anyone, let alone have a camera aimed at him. Then on screen there was a very familiar little face. "Hi, Daddy!"

His heart caught up in his throat and for an awful moment, he thought he'd cry. Then he managed a smile. "Hey baby. Look at you. Are you being good for Mama and your uncles and aunts?"

"Yes," she said confidently. "Why do you have a big bandage on your head?"

"That's Daddy's booboo," Pepper said. "Remember we talked about that."

"Oh. Yeah. Does it hurt?"

"A little bit," Tony told her. "But Auntie Mandy took good care of me, so I'll be fine."

"I want to see you and give you a big hug."

"Oh, I want that too. Very much. Soon as the doctors say it's okay."

"Okay. Uncle Happy says we can go play now." She waved and he could see her bouncing on her feet. "Feel better. I love you _ten_ thousand."

"I love you a million," he replied, waving with his left hand.

The screen went dark, and Pepper took the phone back. "She's here," Pepper said. "In the past."

"So I see." He chuckled, leaning back on his pillows. "Space magic."

"You dusted Thanos and somehow made it so we had no casualties at all."

While he remembered having the stones and snapping, for the life of him, he couldn't recall what he'd wished for. "I don't know if I really did anything consciously. I guess I figured if the stones were all powerful they'd figure out what I wanted."

"Peace," she said. "And Morgan."

He smiled. "Sounds about right."

"And for some reason. . . a big house in Greenwich Village."

"Huh. Guess I was more serious about that than I thought." He'd been thinking how he liked Strange's house, and should get one like it. Apparently he had.

They wouldn't let Morgan come see him until he was out of the ICU, but nothing felt better than having her snuggled up against him when she finally could. In the regular room is when he finally got a look at the burns without bandages. They were both better and worse than he expected. The one going up his neck to his ear was surprisingly reasonable, though he'd never grow a normal beard on that side again.

Amanda gleefully called him Scarface, and told him he was infringing on her brand.

"I think mine is more tortured gothic hero than villainous mastermind."

"You're just trying to make me feel better," she teased. They were doing the first second-skin treatment, which required a lot of laying very still and being bored.

"So tell me, how much do fake arms suck and how much engineering and I going to need to do?"

"Current commercially available fake arms suck. I've already started talking with Princess Shuri about the arm she built Sergeant Barnes, which does not suck. It'll give us a good starting point."

"In the meantime, I'll get a hook." He looked at her. "I'm going to need you to get an eye patch and help me take Morgan trick-or-treating dressed as pirates."

She smirked. "Think Lani would let us rig up her chair to look like a boat? She could be the masthead."

"I think she's still mad about being trapped in the suit and doesn't want me touching her chair."

"I would classify her reaction as more bemused than angry, but fair." She finished puttering and covered his side, coming around to sit where he could see her. "Try not to move for a couple minutes."

"I'll lie back and think of England."

"That's the spirit."

It took Team Science longer to rebuild the time machine without him, but he was still in the hospital when they were done, and began their stone-returning missions. Amanda went on one of them, and he was far more anxious about that than he wanted to admit.

When she returned that afternoon he was very relieved, though she was acting odd, fussing with his wires and monitors, taking his blood pressure and getting an oxygen mask ready.

"Is there something you'd like to tell the class, Newbury?"

"I just want make sure you don't have a heart attack and die." She leaned back and hollered, "Come on in."

The door swung open, and there was Natasha Romanov. " _Fallaces sunt rerum species_ ," she said.

"Holy fucking-" He started trying to get up and one of his monitors went nuts. Amanda sighed and pinned him down until Nat could get over and let him hug her.

"Oh, please, if my return kills you, I'll never hear the end of it."

"How are you here?"

She shrugged. "Apparently, no one's given back the soul stone before."

He laughed so hard he was probably going to set off the monitors again. "Jesus fucking Christ."

She pressed a kiss to his cheek before straightening. "Heard you saved the world."

"I am just that awesome."

"Good job. I'm retiring."

"So is he," Amanda said from somewhere behind him, and he didn't bother to make a face at her. Because she was right.

"What are you going to do with yourself?" he asked Nat instead. 

"Going to the farm with Clint. Learn how to grow things. Maybe start keeping bees. Turn them into tiny assassins. I'll see where the wind takes me."

Didn't sound like a half bad idea.

When he finally got out of the hospital, he threw a big party at the house in the Village he'd willed into existence. For their family. For all the people who had saved the world. He was alive because they'd helped him carry something he'd expected to take alone to his grave. 

Pepper wore a fantastic dress that was mostly backless. He spent the night wondering if she genuinely just looked spectacularly hot, or if it was was just how long it had been that was enhancing it. Like how good food tastes when you're starving.

He was pretty sure no conversation he'd ever had with Amanda Newbury had horrified her as much as the one they'd had that morning about what qualified as "exercise".

Morgan was running around in a big poofy thing that was probably more fitting on flower girl, but she'd picked it. While she was up, he had some distraction from staring at his wife. And she was, apparently, his wife. She'd shown him her drivers license, which said Pepper Stark on it.

"That came out of your subconscious," she told him, when he called her by it after they'd gotten Morgan out of her ballgown and put her to bed. "I would not have changed my name."

"Intellectually, I know that. I guess my subconscious is just a caveman."

"It is. I think it made my boobs bigger."

He pointed at her. "I like your boobs just as they are. That's not me."

She looked down at them a moment, then back at him. "You know," she said slowly. "I saw Morgan and just assumed—I mean, I never actually checked."

"You think you might still be pregnant?"

"I. . . don't know. By what would be this point with Morgan, I was puking three times a day. I feel fine." She looked more confused than anything, but she did put her champagne glass down.

There was way too much magic and not enough science in this whole mess. "Do you want me to run to CVS for a pregnancy test?"

"Honestly? As soon as everyone leaves, I want you to take this dress off with your teeth. The other thing can wait."

He gave her a little left-handed salute. "Yes, ma'am."

She turned to kiss his cheek, and murmured. "There's nothing under it."

He groaned. "I knew it." He really wanted to grab her ass and feel for himself, but she was on his right side. She sauntered off, and he stood there and stared.

Everyone didn't actually leave, because a good chunk of them were staying in the house. He chose a time to feign tiredness—he had just gotten out of the hospital—and call it a night. Some of them were going to be up chatting in the living room until 2 AM.

Her dress had two ties to pull and the whole thing slid to the floor. Then she stood in front of him in nothing but a pair of stilettos as she carefully disassembled his suit with excruciating slowness.

"I'm going to have all my shirt buttons replaced with magnets," he told her as she undid all the little shirt buttons. She'd had to button them up, too. 

"That's better than this morning when you were going to build a robot to dress you." She said that with affection. 

"Lani said that wasn't a half bad idea, for people more disabled than me."

She pushed the shirt off his shoulders. "I'm sure you will make all kinds of awesome things." Then she leaned over to kiss his bare shoulder before tugging up his undershirt—something he could do fine himself, but he was enjoying being undressed by a naked woman in heels so high they made her taller than him.

"I will," he agreed, tucking his arm around her and tugging her closer to kiss her collarbone.

She leaned into him, and he felt her hands on his skin beneath the undershirt. It felt strange on the right side, nerves misfiring as the skin healed. Some spots were numb, some wildly sensitive, enough to make him jump. Pepper went very still, and whispered, "Have you acquired a ticklish spot?"

"Just some confused nerves," he murmured, dropping a kiss the the curve of her breast. "Don't take advantage of my infirmity."

"I have been looking for a ticklish spot for thirteen years." She stroked her fingers over the same patch of skin, and it was impossible not to react. He didn't laugh, but she did, clearly pleased with herself. He'd been worried, just a little, that she'd be bothered by the burn scars given how extensive they were. At no point did he consider she might find entertainment in them.

After a third tickle, he retaliated with the spot he knew at the top of her thigh and a few moments later they had collapsed onto the bed, trying to one up the other.

She managed to get on top and he held up his hand. "I surrender, I surrender."

Bracing her hands on either side of his head, she laughed and tried to catch her breath. "You did pretty good for a one armed man." He was too distracted the boobs suddenly in his face—and the _were_ bigger—that it took him a moment to notice she'd stilled. "Sorry," she said. "I shouldn't keep mentioning that."

"Why not?" He reached up and cupped her breast, circling the nipple with his thumb. "It's true."

"I just. . ." She shuddered, eyes closing. He could literally see her lose her train of thought, which was fine by him. Admittedly, having only one hand to touch her with was kind of annoying, but he'd spent plenty enough time with his left arm in some sort of cast or brace. They'd done this around all manner of injuries. 

He gave her other breast equal attention, tweaking her nipple gently, before sliding his hand down to stroke between her thighs. "I'm totally putting a vibrator in my new arm."

"You're a genius," She rocked against his hand, and then bent to kiss him before the could respond. After all this time, he knew her buttons like the back of his hand and he enjoyed pressing them, in all the right ways, until she was shaking and incoherent again.

"Why are you still wearing pants?" she demanded, like that hadn't been her responsibility.

"I don't know. I don't know why either of us wears clothes at all, really."

"I love you," she told him, and then she sat up and slid backwards off his knees to take said pants off. He watched her hands on the belt, the button, the zipper, until she got her hand inside and he closed his eyes. The touch was gone in a moment, and left the bed entirely to yank the fabric off. 

She rejoined him on the bed and he cupped the back of her head to kiss her as she resettled on top of him. "I love you back," he told her as she slowly lowered herself onto him. Nothing on earth felt as good as sliding inside her, and it was enough for her to just rock a bit while they kissed.

Her breathing was sharp and uneven, and he could feel her trembling a little. "That's it, honey," he murmured, letting his hand wander down again, stroking her clit.

She sat up enough to move move, rolling her hips and but apparently deciding to take her time. When she straightened all the way he pushed up to follow her, and she gave a surprised and impressed laugh as she wrapped her arms over his shoulders. "What?" he asked, bending his head to kiss her breast.

It took her a moment to muster either the breath or the coherence to say, "After a month in the hospital I'm impressed with your abs." She sucked in some air. "Also. Felt really good."

"My hospital PT was an insistent woman." He flattened a hand on her back. "Gotta keep up that core strength."

"Right." She tugged on his hair to make him look up so she could kiss him. "I just. . . a little more. . ." she mumbled. Okay, now he was annoyed at the one hand thing again. They were a little precariously on the end of the bed and he could not both hold her and touch her at the same time.

Well, there was more than one way to skin a cat, as they said. He dipped his head and took a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard at the same moment he lifted his hips to thrust into her. She cried out—involuntarily given how loud it was, and then he could feel her shatter. Her body and her arms tightened around him, her head tipped back and then the pulses started and she moaned again. She was not at _all_ quiet.

He did not last long after that, bucking up to her again before stilling and shuddering his release. He fell backwards and pulled her with him, before he lost his grip and they fell off the bed. She fell bonelessly on top of him, and he could hear a bit of a whimper on the end of each exhale—a familiar sign that he'd succeeded in really breaking her.

One handed or no, if he could still make her scream loud enough it was probably audible in the hallway, he was doing just fine.

Eventually she rolled off of him, but only enough to sprawl out on her back. They just breathed together, and then she said, "So would the whole arm vibrate or like just the fingers?"

"I'm thinking just the fingers. Feel like the whole thing might fuck with my nerve endings."

"I agree. It's an enhancement, not a fetish item." She stretched her arms over her head, and he watched her. He'd spent a lot of time, over a lot of years, looking at her naked and he never got tired of it. But neither of them had been imagining her breasts were bigger. Her nipples were darker. And on top of that she actually felt different inside. It could be the time gap, the younger body. . . but he didn't think so. "I've lost you to prosthetic arm schematics, haven't I?"

"No, actually. I really think you're pregnant."

"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "Me too. Not sure if I should be excited or terrified." 

"I'm more confused. Are you pregnant with Morgan? Are we going to have clones?"

"That's the terrified part. I don't know how all of this works. Did you wish for a second child?"

"Not that I remember. But I didn't specifically wish for a house in the Village and here we are." He blew out a breath. "I'll call Doc in the morning, maybe she can run some tests or something."

"I guess they'd be like identical twins?" She shook her head and rolled towards him. "It's a baby. It's good news."

"It is," he agreed, kissing her gently. "Two kids. We thought that was out of the cards."

She reached her hand and traced the edge of the burn scar, from his ear, down his neck, over his shoulder. He wondered if that would become a habit, like tracing the scar where the arc reactor used to be, to remind her what she'd almost lost. "We got really, really lucky in all this, didn't we?"

"We did," he told her. "One in fourteen million."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Kid's gonna have a hard life trying to be a college student and a superhero. I'm gonna make it easier any way I can."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally posted this in the wrong story for about 30 seconds, but I'm sure it was long enough to send out confusing notifications--sorry!

Amanda told them not to bother with the drug store test and set up an ultrasound. It was weird deja vu, but nobody was surprised to see the remarkably baby-like shape wiggling around on the screen.

"You're measuring far enough along for genetic testing," she said. "We'll check it against Morgan and see where we stand."

Carol had organized a new version of the Avengers, and then left them mostly in Sam and Rhodey's hands as she had other planets to go check on. While Tony was still in the hospital, they'd all made the decision to move HQ out to California. Land had been purchased, money had been thrown around, construction was underway.

"We're not living in the compound," she told Tony. "Because you are retired."

"I'm sure there are perfectly nice houses in California to purchase. Find somewhere with a yard and good schools to raise the kids."

"We could open the Palo Alto labs again."

They were out back in the garden, watching Morgan climb in the treehouse that was back there—because of course it was—while they sorted through paperwork. There was a lot of paperwork when an alien makes a giant crater on your property. Pepper turned when she heard noise behind them, to see Amanda coming out onto the deck. She waved.

"Hey," Amanda said. "Congratulations, you're not carrying a clone."

She swore Tony looked vaguely disappointed, but said, "That's a relief. She look good otherwise?"

" _He_ is perfectly healthy."

Pepper gave a laugh. "Really?"

"Yep." Amanda looked at Tony. "You got some stuff in your subconscious you might want to dig out."

"You did have a conversation with Howard," Pepper said. "We're not naming him Howard, by the way."

"You know, my mother wanted to name me Alonzo."

"That's also not happening."

"Armando?" he asked, hooking a thumb towards Amanda.

"No," both women said in unison.

Tony's watch beeped. He lifted his right arm, frowned at his lack of a hand, then lifted his left arm where the watch now was. He did that all the time. "I have to go. I'm taking Parker to the suit guy to get fitted for a tux."

Pepper turned. "I didn't know Giovanni was in town. And why are you getting Peter a tuxedo?"

Tony shrugged. "Neither did I, but I have an appointment. For something, I assume, the other version of me wanted. Thought I'd take the kid to get one for one for his prom." He stood. "You should get his girlfriend a dress. I ran a check on her after I offered her the job." When Peter visited him in the hospital, Tony spontaneously offered to pay her to organize their giant mystery library over the summer. "Her mother has been in and out of mental hospitals and her father's halfway through a fifteen year stint in Sing Sing." Pepper's eyebrows went up, and Tony shook his head. "Car thief. They managed to contort it into armed robbery on the basis of an unused pocket knife. Anyway, I don't think she's got much by way of resources. Buy her a dress that goes with Italian Superfine."

"I'm going back to work," Amanda said.

Sighing, Pepper pulled out her phone and called May Parker.

"Hi Pepper, where is he now?" she answered with.

"They're going to get a tuxedo, but I'm actually not calling about Peter. I'm calling about his girlfriend."

"Michelle? What about her?"

"Tony wants me to buy her a prom dress, and I was wondering, on a scale of 1-10, how weird she would find that."

There was a pause. "Normally, pretty weird. But conveniently, I already have plans to got dress shopping with her. I don't see why you couldn't 'tag along.'"

"I'll take you guys for some girly food afterwards."

"I think she'd enjoy that. She doesn't get a lot of girl time things."

Pepper chuckled. "We can fix that."

"We had plans to go out Saturday morning. I'm picking her up."

"I can come get you. Happy will drive us and we don't need to deal with parking."

"That would be great, thanks, Pepper."

Prom dress shopping turned out to be a ton of fun. Peter's girlfriend, MJ, reminded Pepper a lot of herself at the same age, and she took an immediate liking to the girl. She bought her a Marchesa, a pair of Jimmy Choos, lunch at a tea house, and her college tuition.

Dropping her off, she tucked her card with her private number into MJ's purse. "If you need anything, you don't have to run it through the men. Or if your mother wants to talk to me about why I bought her kid all this stuff."

"I don't think she'll notice," MJ told her, covering her purse with a protective hand. "But thank you."

"Have fun at your prom."

"Thanks Mrs. Stark." She waved and headed into her building. 

She got a full, if second hand report, of the prom from Tony. A good time had clearly been had by all. Pepper was glad she'd been able to help out, and glad she liked MJ, as she was going to be working in their house all summer. But she didn't expect to hear from her again outside of the book job. She'd been that girl, and independence was a precious thing.

They attended the kids' graduation and took them and May Parker out to dinner. The UN had allowed Spiderman to operate without signing the Sokovia Accords as long as he remained anonymous, local, and Tony took full responsibility for him. Once Peter was outed after the last big battle, Tony had convinced them he wouldn't be a full Avenger until he was an actual adult and done with school, and didn't need to sign it until then. But that was absolutely as far as it could possibly be pushed.

Tony told Peter about his trip to Europe to sign it in the most Tony way possible. One of these days that man would let someone have some notice about that sort of thing.

"I still don't understand why they're making him go to Vienna. There are UN offices right here in New York."

"They like doing it on 'neutral territory'." Tony did finger quotes with an enormous amount of sarcasm. "I'm happy to use it as an excuse to send the kid to Europe."

"You're probably spoiling him, but he seems to deserve it."

"Kid's gonna have a hard life trying to be a college student and a superhero. I'm gonna make it easier any way I can."

They were in the car on the way home. Across from them, Morgan had fallen asleep in her carseat, and Pepper lowered her voice. "On the topic of your spoiling, I know I told you you couldn't buy him a car, but you probably should."

"I'm waiting till we get out west. He won't have anywhere to put it here."

"Please make it a normal car." She was never going to convince him to buy, say, a Toyota. She just didn't want him to buy a Porsche.

"I'm even going to let him have input." He sounded so proud of himself.

They pulled up to the curb in front of their house. Tony leaned over to get Morgan out of her carseat, a task that was nearly impossible with only one hand. But Pepper had learned it was futile to offer to help.

He did it, somehow, balancing her on his shoulder as they walked in. "Can't wait till I get the green light for my new limb."

"Me too," she said. Apparently too enthusiastically because he made a face. So she added, "I can tell how frustrated you are." All he seemed to be, though, was frustrated. He did not seemed to be having any deeper distress about losing a hand. He just wanted his prosthetic. She wondered if she ought to ask Lani if she should worry about that.

"Maybe if you start pestering Doc, too, she'll tell me I'm okay."

"I'll get on that." The burns were making the healing slower, and there wasn't much they could do about that.

They put Morgan to bed, and went back to their room. "What would you think about selling this house?" she asked.

He looked around the room thoughtfully. "It is a little weird, isn't it?"

"I don't remember buying it. Why is the living room white? Why did that seem like a good idea to us? We have a small child."

"There's a lot of questionable choices in this place. Are you obsessed with old books and never told me? Because there's a library downstairs to make Belle jealous."

She took her jacket off. "Like we're inhabiting bodies of strangers." As best they could tell, in this new timeline, Pepper had gotten pregnant by accident not long after Tony fixed the Extremis in her. They'd gotten married after Morgan was born—just like the original timeline—though because there was no decimation to mute the general mood, the wedding had apparently been a huge, splashy event. 

Some things had been preserved. Two years previous they'd nearly gotten divorced over their disastrous attempt to have a second child, and Lani had reported her memories of Tony's therapy were nearly identical to his memories. On the other hand, they'd bought this thing. 

"I'm fine selling it," Tony said. "But I think we should buy something smaller to replace it. It's handy having a house on this coast."

"I agree. But first we need to find a house in California. Maybe go out after we get back from Vienna?" He was fighting with his shirt buttons, and she went over to undo them. 

"Sounds good," he said, waiting for her to do it. "I can pester Doc in person."

The night before they left for Austria, Pepper's phone rang just as she was laying down to go to bed.

"Hi, Mrs Stark?" She recognized MJ's voice immediately, and the thread of desperation in it. "I'm really sorry to call so late, but I need help."

She sat up, waving off Tony when he looked up from his tablet. "It's all right. What can I do?"

"My mom had. . . an episode tonight and I had to call the police. They said they were going to psych hold her at the hospital, I think they took her to Mt. Sinai in Astoria? And I haven't finished packing and I. . . I don't know what to do."

"Okay," she said. "Take a deep breath. Or maybe even a shower if that will help. I'll be there in 25 minutes."

"Okay." Pepper heard her take a breath and blow it out. "Okay," MJ repeated. "I'll see you then."

"What's up?" Tony asked when she put the phone down.

"That was MJ. Sounds like her mother had some kind of breakdown. I'm going to go over there and see if she wants to come back here."

"Poor kid. Call me if there's anything I can do."

"I will." She threw some clothes on, and went downstairs to the bottom floor to the staff apartment Happy stayed in when they were in the city. "Sorry to wake you. I need a ride."

He leaned on the door, rubbing his neck. "What did who do?"

"MJ requires assistance. I think we're going to be bringing her back, get the big car and make sure the trunk is empty."

Surprise seemed to wake him up a bit. "Got it. Meet you out front."

When they reached MJ's building in Queens, Pepper left Happy to park the car, and went up to hit the buzzer. The door clanked and she opened it, heading up to 3B, which had read Jones on the buzzer list.

MJ was sitting in the hallway in front of the door, arms around her legs, knees tucked under her chin. She saw Pepper coming and got to her feet. "Hi. Thanks."

"Hey," she said, holding out her arms. "Come here."

Sniffling a little, she stepped forward and hugged her, pressing her face into Pepper's shoulder. She rocked her a moment. "It'll be okay," Pepper said finally. "We'll take care of you."

She nodded and stepped back. "Okay. Um. My bag and stuff is still in there. I wasn't finished packing for Europe. And I guess maybe I should pack more, if I'm not coming back here. . ."

"Happy will be up in a minute, he'll help us pack up everything to take to our house. Anything else can can be packed later by movers and put in storage depending on what happens with your mother." She pulled her over to the couch. "You want to tell me what happened?"

"She saw me packing. I reminded her I was going to Europe with Peter. She started saying I was abandoning her and hated her." She sighed. "I think she's cycling into a depressive episode. She was saying a lot of paranoid stuff about being alone and people taking me away. It was ugly. She threatened to kill herself. Then she went to the kitchen and _tried_ to kill herself. Which is when I called the cops."

"I'm so sorry," Pepper told her, remembering being a similar age and having to call an ambulance because her father was passed out on the couch and she couldn't wake him. "You did the right thing."

She nodded. "I'm really tired of being responsible for her."

"You shouldn't have to be." Pepper looked at her. "How about you go to Italy, and enjoy your trip, and I will take care of all this. We'll get your mom into a nice private treatment center, handle the apartment and whatever else needs doing."

Her throat worked as she swallowed. "Really?"

"Yes. I have a lot of lawyers and a lot of money and a last name that opens doors anywhere in the city. And this is an adult thing. Let the adults handle it."

She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and said, very quietly, "Okay."

"Let's get you packed up, and then I'll take you home and make you some tea and you can get a good night's sleep." She nodded and led her into her room. Pepper helped her toss the last few outfits into her suitcase and load up her back pack with books. Then she tucked her arm around MJ as they headed downstairs. She gave Happy some instructions about what of hers she wanted to come to the Greenwich house for the summer, and he said he'd have someone come take care of that while she was in Italy.

Pepper was quiet on the ride back, giving MJ her space. After a moment of thought, she texted Tony. _Do me a favor, stay out of the way when we get back. You're overwhelming._

 _Consider me sequestered_ , he replied.

The other Avengers had been coming and going and crashing in various guest rooms and leaving stuff here, so she was only sure one of the smaller ones was fit for a new guest—it was across the hall from Morgan's playroom, so she hadn't had anyone in it since right after the fight. "Sorry about this," she said to MJ, even though she knew it was a ridiculous thing to say. "This is the only room we've got ready."

"It's fine," MJ said. "More than enough, really."

Down in the kitchen, she put water on for tea. Pepper had never been much of a tea person, and the fact that this house had fancy looseleaf tea and its attendant equipment was probably a testament to how often Amanda was here.

MJ came down about ten minutes later, looking like she might have showered. At the very least, she'd changed into more comfortable clothes and tied her hair back. Pepper handed her a cup of tea and she smiled. "Thank you."

"We have a psychologist on staff. She started out as Tony's therapist and now she supervises the Stark Foundation's Mental Health Program. I'd like to talk to her about your mother, if that's all right."

She nodded. "Peter's mentioned her. In passing. That's fine. I can probably get you access to some of her records. . ."

"I'll talk to her. And we'll figure out whatever legal paperwork we need. Am I remembering right you're 18?"

She smiled thinly. "As of today."

Pepper sighed. "Happy Birthday, eh? When Peter's out meeting with the UN, we'll go shopping. Get you a proper birthday present."

"You don't have to. It's all right."

"Nope, I don't. But I want to anyway." She reached out and covered MJ's hand with hers. "My daughter is four and wears lime green crocs everywhere. I just want to buy somebody some pretty shoes."

The thin smile came back a little stronger. "I like shoes."

On their day in Vienna, Pepper bought her Louboutins and lingerie, and took her to the hotel's spa.

They were soaking in pedicure chairs when something occurred to her. "So this may be overstepping my bounds," Pepper said. "But since you don't seem to have a lot of support and your mother is, well. . " she shrugged. "I thought I'd ask. You good for birth control?"

"I'm getting an IUD when we get back to the states," MJ told her, seemingly unfazed. "For now we'll be doing everything but."

"I had one of those a long time. Easiest thing ever. I was on the pill when I was your age, and that was. . . less good."

"I wanted something that had zero potential user error. No surprises, no accidents."

Pepper glanced over at Morgan, who had headphones on while watching a video on her tablet. "I've been pregnant four times. All of them have been accidents." In the new version of their lives, Morgan had been, as best she could tell, a birth control failure. It was ironic to think about it—she'd never been able to get pregnant when she tried. She patted her bump. "I suppose this one was more a surprise after giving up, though we were told our odds were worse than the failure rates of most birth control."

"I'm not sure if I ever want children. Biological ones, at any rate. I certainly don't want them at 18." She paused. "Yours is really cute, though."

"Thank you," she said. "The first accident, I was 21. Didn't know if I wanted kids or not, but was damn sure I didn't want them _then_." 

MJ nodded. "I feel like there's a lot of women with that story."

"Took six of my friends to scrape up the money for the abortion. I don't know who I'd be if I'd had that baby, but I know I wouldn't be Pepper Stark."

"Probably not." MJ looked down at her toes soaking in the water. "Mom was young when she had me. I'm pretty sure it was an accident. I want to graduate college and see what comes next."

"You ever find yourself in need, you call. That stands regardless of your relationship with Peter."

"Thank you," she said quietly. "I appreciate it."

"If you do want them, though, try and get on it by 35. Fertility treatment is a bitch."

She grinned. "I will take that under advisement."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Seriously, what did you make these robots out of, vibranium? This is the second rocket-propelled building destruction they've apparently survived."_

_Woodside, California_

The house they'd lived in out in California in the original timeline was currently occupied, but they found another one to buy. The plan was to sell the big townhouse in New York and buy another one—probably a skyscraper penthouse because Tony missed the views. These days he didn't feel so bad about being reminded of the tower. The townhouse was going to take a while to sell, so they moved out west while it was still being organized and packed.

He had a makeshift workshop set up in the garage of their new house. Though it had briefly worried him, it turned out he didn't really need fine motor skills in his fingers to build things. He had nannites.

"Oh, this is deja vu." Rhodey was standing in the garage doorway from the house. 

"Which part?" Tony asked, looking up from the schematics he was working on.

"The general ambiance." He frowned as Dum-E rolled passed him with what Tony could see was the wrong damn wrench—again. Morgan was better at tool retrieval. "Seriously, what did you make these robots out of, vibranium? This is the second rocket-propelled building destruction they've apparently survived." 

"They're just as hard to kill as their daddy," Tony replied, sending the bot back for the right tool. When his subconscious had been instructing the stones to alter his past, they'd also somehow relocated his bots from the upstate compound to the basement workshop of the New York townhouse. 

"I came to talk to you about something."

"Sure, hit me with it." How bad could it be?

"When Danvers and I got talking about what the next phase of the Avengers would look like, you were still in the burn unit and too full of morphine to have a reasonable opinion on lunch. And we all assumed that if you survived you'd retire for real. You'd either stay in the city or go back to California and we'd be at the compound. Didn't occur you'd move the facility out here and then follow it."

"Are you complaining about your move to nice weather and ocean views?"

"I'm telling you we thought you wouldn't be here. Danvers offered Barnes a spot."

Tony's hand stilled and he stared unseeing at the schematics a moment. "I thought he was heading back to Wakanda."

"Rogers says that's temporary. The theory goes, we want all the enhanced people we can working for us. And we could do for strength. Right now the only people we have who can take a bullet are a teenager and an android who doesn't like violence." 

That. . . was a very good point. Tony took a couple deep breaths and started the nannites going again. "He's a hell of a fighter, that's for sure."

"I know you and Steve sorted your shit out. But I also know that at the time Barnes was dead. You want this nixed, I'll do it."

He considered. "You don't have to. I may not have dealt with him personally, but he did come up a lot. What he did. . . what happened to my parents. . . that wasn't his choice. Wasn't him. I don't want to make him my kid's godfather, but I can be civil."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I'll probably talk about it with Yee tomorrow. But I'm sure."

"Okay. You need some help with whatever that is you're working on?"

"Sure, come over. I'm spitballing some stuff for my new arm."

Rhodey came over to the bench. "How are you doing about that? Losing the arm."

"I'm looking forward to my first step towards cyborg." Rhodey didn't respond and Tony looked up at him, to find him giving him "worried face." "Seriously, man. I'm all right. I palmed those stones thinking I was going to die and I ended up losing an arm. I'd call it getting off easy."

"I just, you know, I've been there. Waking up disabled isn't nothing."

Tony nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I know. I'm not. . . There's frustrations, you know? Of course there is. But it's manageable."

"I worry is all. Remember when you were dying and didn't tell anyone? Having panic attacks and not telling anyone? It's kind of a thing you do."

"I know," he admitted. "I do. But I have a therapist now and several more people willing to yell at me. Plus a kid I want to be around for for a long time. I'm. . . better."

Rhodey regarded him a moment. "Yeah, I guess you are, aren't you?"

"Trying to be, anyway." He grinned. "And hey. Speaking of kids. . . Pepper's pregnant."

He chuckled. "That was fast."

"Well. Seems like those stones are even more powerful than advertised. She's as pregnant as she was with Morgan at this time."

Rhodey blinked. "Are you going to have two Morgans?"

"Nope. It's a boy."

"Huh. Just when I think this whole thing can't get weirder."

"Right? I even stumped Strange with that one."

They had offices in downtown Palo Alto—Pepper had rented them and had furniture delivered before they even had their house set up. While the new Avengers compound was being built, any of the team who wanted could have offices there. Most of them were scattered visiting loved ones that had dusted—including Doc—but for a few their family was local. So he hitched a ride with Pepper in the morning so he could talk to his shrink.

Lani looked up when he tapped on her door and smiled. "Hello there. How are you doing resettling?"

"I think this house is nicer than the last one." He sat in one of her chairs. "It's weird you don't remember."

Her smile softened. "Several people have expressed that. I'm told I did excellent work on quite a few of you."

"You are why Steve Rogers and I are on speaking terms."

"Did you come to talk about Steve?" 

He sighed and tipped his head back. "Tangentially. Barnes is going to be on the new team."

She leaned back against her chair. "I met him the night after the battle, at your house. You were in the hospital but the fact that Pepper seemed fine with him being there made me think there were a few details lost to the gap."

"It was one of the topics you helped with. He was. . . under a lot of torture and mind fuckery when he did what he did. I was tortured in the cave so I have a glimmer of what one might agree to to make it stop. It's still hard to look at him and not see the images from that tape, but I now longer want to kill him."

"Not wanting to kill him, and being willing to hire him, are two very different things."

"I shouldn't care, you know? I'm not part of the team. I'm retired. I should be able to avoid him just fine. He can do his job."

"If you didn't plan to be underfoot, you'd have stayed in New York."

He made a face at her, because she was right and it was annoying. "I told Rhodey it was fine, not to rescind the offer. And I think I'm okay with it. In the abstract, at least. But I don't know if that will change when he's here."

"What will you do if it does?"

"I don't know. Send him back to Wakanda? Pout in my room?"

"It's something you should think about. The first option isn't fair, and the second is going to get you divorced."

He was quiet a moment, looking out her window. "Do you think getting to know him a little would help?"

"It might," she replied. "See the person and not the weapon."

Tony nodded, deciding to put that on the back burner until Barnes showed up. "Rhodey thinks I should be more upset about my arm."

"Are you not upset?"

"I mean, I'm not thrilled. But I'm not mourning it the way he did when he got hurt. I'm making plans for a prosthetic and Doc is optimistic about the scars healing well. I'm. . . fine."

"It is your dominant hadn't isn't it? That must interfere with a lot of things."

"I miss driving a stick shift. But I have FRIDAY dictate most of my notes and stuff anyway. And between her and my nannites my tinkering hasn't slowed down. Sex got a little annoying, but it's just a matter of time till I can put a fake one on and go to town."

"Most people have a lot of feelings about losing a limb. I think everyone is concerned you're bottling things up." They way she said everyone made him wonder who else was worried about him. Pepper, probably. Maybe Amanda. Or not—she seemed a fan of 'suck it up and live the life you have'.

"I know that in the past that has been my way. And maybe there's something going to bubble up later. But honestly, doc, compared to waking up in a cave attached to a car battery, this is really manageable."

"Interesting you mention that. On your mind because of the thing with Barnes, I assume. That was also—how did you put it?—waking up from your own death?"

He blew out a breath and looked out the window again. It didn't look out on anything interesting, and he made a mental note to make sure her office at the coastal compound had a nice view. "I did not expect to survive handling the stones," he admitted.

"But you picked them up anyway?"

"Seemed like the only option at the time. According the Strange it was one in 14 million."

"And you already expected to die?"

"That was the path I was on for a long time. Since the cave."

She tilted her head. "Are you still on that path?"

Tony gave it a moment's thought, because neither of them would trust an impulsive answer. "No. I think that was it."

"And your hand seems a fair price to pay for getting off of it?"

He looked at her. "Is that crazy?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. That's actually a pretty decent way of looking at it. You expected to give your life and only had to give part of an arm. And you're pretty adept at reducing the inconvenience of disability."

"Not just my life, but half the universe. And Morgan. Seems more than fair, to me."

"If that feeling is genuine, then you probably are doing okay. Just don't beat yourself up if you _do_ get upset about it sometimes. That's normal."

He nodded. "Makes sense. Can I ask how the rest of the inmates are doing?"

"At any time in the missing five years did you ever once convince me to tell you things about my other patients?"

"Not even once."

"Everyone is adjusting, which is exactly what is expected. There was something I have been meaning to ask you, though."

"What is it?"

"Why was there a suit hidden in my chair that you never mentioned?"

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I thought you'd scold me for being paranoid and make me take it out."

"That's why you never mentioned it. Why was it there?" The way she asked that it sounded like she knew the answer, but was going to ask him any way. She did that a lot, and how she managed to do it in a way that didn't piss him off is why he paid her so much money.

"Because I need to protect the people I care about."

"And how are you going to reconcile that with retirement?"

"Narrow the people I care about to people I personally know and makes sure they have the best hardware possible to stay alive."

She nodded. "Please tell them all it's there."

"I promise."

*

Pepper's pregnancy was so free of unpleasant symptoms that it made her paranoid. She was grateful when she started to show, and particularly when she started to feel him moving around in there. Just to remind her he was okay and she hadn't imagined the whole thing.

She spent the summer going back and forth between coasts, getting things moved and set up and dealing with the endless amount of fallout from the battle upstate.

They packed up the house in New York City, had the things they wanted out of it shipped west, everything else sold, and the house put on the market.

Eventually she got to meet MJ's mother, who was out of the inpatient center she'd been in, on medication and seemed to be doing all right. Pepper had arranged for her to have some help at home, and Lani had met with her to help her get set up with a better therapist and psychiatrist. 

"Medicaid does not provide anything even remotely close to the care needed for complex mental illnesses," Lani explained. They were in her brand new office at Avenger HQ in California. She wanted to brief MJ on the situation, and MJ had asked Pepper to come along. 

"Yeah," MJ said. "Believe me. I know."

"The therapist and psychiatrist we arranged for are well aware of her history. They were be proactive checking up on her and keeping her medication functional."

"And the home aid will help with daily living, housekeeping, etc." Pepper sighed a little. "I paid her rent while she was in the hospital so she wouldn't loose the apartment, which then somehow caused the cancelation of all her benefits. So I'm just sending a stipend and putting her on Stark Industries' medical insurance."

"Thank you," MJ said quietly. "You really didn't have to do all of this. But I really appreciate it."

"Tony puts on a suit of armor, or did anyway," Pepper said. "I do this."

She smiled a little. "I like this better, to be honest."

"It's a tough gig," Pepper said as she and MJ walked out. "Loving someone who risks their life for a living. And is so famous they attract paparazzi."

"Peter's warned me about that. Only a matter of time before someone catches a shot of us out on a date."

"The fame you get used to. The fear you never do."

"Yeah." She blew out a breath. "I guess it'll only be worse now that he's out here with the team."

"I always felt better when Tony had people with him. They all take care of and look after each other." 

It was clear MJ hadn't thought of that. "I guess it is nice that the rest of them will have his back if he's stupid."

"Watch each other's blindspots. Patch up injuries. Keep morale up. Make sure they get home."

"I trust Doc to keep him alive."

"There is no one on this earth who's better at keeping reckless heroes alive than Doc." 

She smiled. "You say from personal experience?"

"At the end of the big battle, Tony had the infinity stones. They're more power than anybody can handle. It would have killed him, but Doc made a chain of people to disperse the energy. To share it." 

"Peter told me about that. With a rather hilarious description of her panicked race across the battlefield."

They reached Pepper's car. "You staying to hang out with Peter or do you want a ride back to Berkeley?"

"I wanted to see Peter. He get bored too easy with no school."

"Ah. Well, next week Thor is coming out to do some training with him because Barnes is tired of getting tossed around, so he'll have some entertainment."

"Oh, good. I was close to begging our friend Ned to come see him and build legos."

She laughed. "Well, enjoy your evening. Peter knows where the cars are to take you home."

"Thanks, Pepper. For everything."

"Don't think anything of it. Go."

She waved and ran off towards the training gym, already pulling out her phone, presumably to text Peter.

Pepper drove home, and walk back to the family room/play room in search of her husband and daughter. She was startled to find the room now had a ball pit in the floor. "Explain," she said in greeting.

"She asked me _very_ nicely."

She sat on the other end of the couch from him. His right arm was bandaged up again, he'd just had the final surgery to install the anchors and neuro-connectors for his prosthetic arm, which he wanted more that anything he'd ever wanted, ever. Doc was making him wait a week before he could put one on. At last count there were seven different prototypes. "What happened to not spoiling her?" Pepper teased. It was probably the longest week of his life, so she'd give him a little leeway.

"We both knew that wasn't going to last." He glanced over at Morgan when she squealed, erupting from the balls. "How'd it go with MJ?"

"Good. She seems satisfied. And happy to not have to handle it."

"I imagine it's a weight off her shoulders."

"If I can keep one kid from having to grow up too early, I suppose that's something."

He smiled and nodded. "We're all about the little victories now."

"Speaking of those. . ." She reached out and took his left hand, bringing it down to the spot where the baby was trying to karate-chop his way out. She could feel it on the outside, she thought, so hopefully he could feel it too.

Sure enough, his face lit up. "Is that?" He leaned closer, patting her belly. "Hello there, junior."

The baby gave his hand a good thump, and his grin widened. "We should figure out what to call him."

"Junior has a nice ring."

"That's not a real name."

"Anthony Edward Stark Jr. Named for the greatest hero of our generation."

She raised her eyebrows. "That on your business card now?"

"We're still working on the exact wording."

"Tony?" she asked quietly. "Are you serious about this?" Because you couldn't always tell with him, but she could read him better than anyone, and it sounded like he was.

He was quiet a moment, then tilted his head. "I am, a bit. I think. If you hate it we can drop it. But I think. . . I'd like to name him after me."

"It's a guy impulse I and most women don't really get. But you lost a limb. You can have namesake."

He smiled. "I can't really explain it myself, but. . . there it is."

"But he's getting his own actual nickname. We're not addressing him as Junior, and we are not doing the Big Tony/Little Tony thing and if you make a penis joke right now I'm going to punch you in the face."

His mouth did that thing that meant he was biting down on a comment. "I'm sure we'll think of something."

She leaned over to kiss him. "We have time."

"We do. Which is a nice feeling."

The way his head was bent she could see the tiny light flashing on the back of his right ear, which was entirely artificial as the original one had been burned beyond saving. It contained fancy electronics that compensated for his damaged hearing, and had been a gift from Rocket while he was still in the hospital. He'd apparently also made Thor's replacement eye. "Your ear needs charging," she commented, because these were the sorts of things she said now.

He covered it with a cupped hand and got to his feet. "Thanks. I'll go see to it. Thoughts on dinner?"

"Your son demands more tacos." Food cravings were probably the strongest pregnancy symptom she had. "Still don't know how you pulled that off," she said, half to herself.

"Pulled what off?" he called.

She got up to follow him. "Remember with Morgan how I made you and Amanda eat on the porch? I have no negative symptoms. I don't even have heartburn."

"Huh." He headed to his workshop where the ear charger was. "Aren't all pregnancies different anyway?"

"Yeah. This is just particularly pleasant. Considering how crappy the last one was. It's just weird, is all I'm saying. Like it was the space magic."

"I will happily take credit for your total lack of vomiting."

"Well. Thank you. For that and a lot of other things."

He grinned at her, cocking his head as he fiddled with the ear. "Anything for you, Pep."

"Does that include going and getting tacos?"

"It absolutely does. Extra guac?"

"Extra everything."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was one of those perfect moments. Everything was peaceful. No one needed rescuing. No one was trying to kill him. He supposed if he stayed retired those moments would come more frequently._

Tony had no idea the installation of his prosthetic would have such a crowd. Amanda had helped him make it, of course—and been part of his arm surgeries. Barnes was there, because he'd been a fairly willing test subject for all the various features they'd come up with. He'd had a neuroconnected prosthetic so long he operating them as well as his organic arm. Pepper came, of course, and Rhodey, mostly so he could make bionic man jokes and keep Pepper company. Shuri was in town at the Wakandan Outreach across the bay and had come over to hover and commentate. She'd worked with them on the design, and there was vibranium in one of his arms. Lani was around here somewhere, too.

He'd ended up, in the end, with two arms much like Barnes did. One was a near copy of Barnes's non-battle arm, covered in second-skin and amazingly realistic. It felt and looked like a real arm, but it was fragile and didn't do much other than be an arm.

The second was made entirely of vibranium nannites and could be quite literally anything he wished. He had his elbow and a good part of his radius and ulna, which meant he didn't need the kind of structural strength Barnes did. It didn't need to throw a punch.

It also didn't need to come off much. Barnes seemed to like spending some time armless. Tony had had plenty of that and would let Doc screw one on permanently if she'd do it.

She set them both down on the table in front of him. "Which one first?"

He didn't even have to think. "Nannites. I've missed tinkering."

It didn't seem to surprise her at all and she picked that one up and brought it over. "It's probably for the best you do this one first," she said. "I'm told the second-skin one coming online is intense." There was a smile she tried to suppress. He had to give Barnes credit for how much he made Amanda smile.

"I suspect that one will be more of a PR arm."

Her mouth quirked as she hooked it up. "Thank you for ceasing to call it the Sex Arm."

"Well, we're in mixed company."

"All hooked up," Amanda said. "Okay, FRIDAY, turn it on."

There was a soft hum and his arm tingled. At Amanda's prompt he wiggled his fingers and watch then respond. He had to think about it more than he would with his actual arm. But it was amazing to watch them move.

"It's not going to shoot lasers or blow up?" Rhodey called, because he knew when to be a pain in the ass. "This is anticlimactic."

"Doc was involved," he called back. "She's boring." He did manage to flip him off, though.

"Connections are good? You can feel all the fingers?" She was going to ask boring doctorly questions, too. He didn't mind. It was so nice to have a damn hand again.

"Yep, all six." She gave him a sharp look and he grinned at her. "I works great Amanda."

"Good," she said softly.

The peanut gallery gathered around. Barnes gave some brief operational pointers. Shuri took great joy in asking FRIDAY to turn his hand into all sort of weird things, and proclaimed it worth the argument she'd apparently had with her brother. Tony could feel Pepper's hand on the back of his neck. He couldn't see her, but he assumed that's who it was. If Rhodey was absently scratching his scalp they probably should talk.

"Okay," Doc said after a minute. "Show's over. Tony, go play around with it, let me know if anything bother you."

"Don't I need to try the sex arm?" he asked. Nails dug into his skin enough to hurt. That was definitely Pepper.

"I'd rather you spend a couple hours playing around with this one so we can trouble shoot."

"I'll try not to break it," he told her.

"You've already paid for it, I don't care what you do to it."

He shook his head and hopped to his feet, turning to look at Pepper. "What do you think?"

She grinned. "You look like you."

"Then perfection has been achieved."

She came close enough she could talk so only he could hear. "How does it feel?"

"Like I'm me again," he told her. She grinned and leaned in to kiss him. He wrapped his arms around her and that felt so incredibly normal.

"Let's head home," he said when they parted. "I want to make an omelette."

She laughed. "You're not dying, are you?"

"No. It will be a celebratory omelette."

They took a detour to pick up Morgan from camp. They'd taken one of the sports cars out to the compound, which Pepper had had to drive because it was manual transmission. That was deliberate, as he wanted to drive it home with his new arm. 

"Daddy you have an arm again!" Morgan shouted as she bolted across the grass to the pickup line. He scooped her up when she reached them and questions tumbled out. "Does it have a repulser? Can it shoot lasers? How about bubbles? Can you make it turn pink?"

"Yes, I do. No. No. Maybe. And yes." He shifted her onto his left hip and held his hand up. "FRIDAY, make it pink." The nannite skins shifted to become a bright magenta.

Morgan gasped. "It's bea-utiful."

"Thank you, I agree completely."

They went home, and he discovered he could in fact make a bubble wand, and then a spatula to make the omelettes with, something Pepper found hilarious and Morgan found downright magical.

"This is truly my best invention," he told Pepper as they watched Morgan frolic in her ball pit.

"I am very glad you are happy," she told him. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and ran her hand down the right arm and over his still magenta hand. He could feel it, but not the way skin could. They way the other prosthetic probably would. A trade off for its utility. But he could turn it and lace their fingers together, which got a pleased hum from her.

It was one of those perfect moments. Everything was peaceful. No one needed rescuing. No one was trying to kill him. He supposed if he stayed retired those moments would come more frequently.

"I think we got pretty lucky," he said. "In the end."

"I have always thought that." She shifted a little, settling against him. "Somehow things all keep working out. Though I'd really love it if this whole thing was your last brush with death."

"That's the goal." He tucked his arm around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "A scary lady has informed me I'm done. This time, I was ready to listen."

"I appreciate the struggle. Flying that suit during the battle was a ton of fun."

He grinned. "I can make you your own. Think how badass you'll look showing up for board meetings."

"I could skip traffic. Fly to work."

"And look sexy doing it."

After a pause, she asked, "You are going to get the other arm at some point, right? Because Amanda raves about the Bonus Feature."

He grinned. "I promise. I just want to play with this one a bit."

She looked down at their joined hands. "Can you really turn it into anything?"

"Anything I can think of."

"You'll never have to suffer Dum-E bringing you the wrong wrench again." She straightened. "My back is killing me. Can you make like a massage roller?"

"FRIDAY?" The nannites shifted around into a roller and he twirled a finger to get Pepper the present her back to him.

"You are the smartest man in the entire universe," she told him.

"Thank you, I'll add that to my business card."

If he'd ever had any inclination to feel bad about losing his hand, there wasn't even a trace now. His new arm turned out to be perhaps the coolest thing he'd ever made in many, many years of inventing things. It was miles better than the one he was born with. Even if Morgan did constantly ask him to make things out of it that he'd never want photographed, like a magic wand or a tiny mermaid, and he spent most weekends with it turned some eye-searing color.

He could also make its fingers vibrate just fine, which they got endless amounts of entertainment out of. He didn't wear the other arm much. But because it was more sensitive, and actually felt like a real hand, he decided to put in on the rainy November afternoon his son was born.

Pepper accidentally broke two of the fingers.

"If Doc ever breeds I should warn Barnes about this," he commented later, taping the fingers together until he could trade the arm out for the other.

"I will pay you real money to phrase it that way to her when she comes back," Pepper said. She was nursing the baby and looked very relaxed. It had been at the hospital a sum total of seven hours, and she'd been comfortable with her epidural up until the last 15 minutes. It was night and day, so much so he wondered if she was right about things his subconscious had asked for.

"Only if I can hold the baby when I do it. I don't think she'll punch me if I'm holding him."

"You underestimate how deft she is." She looked up. "But I think he's done eating if you want to hold him."

"I would love to hold him," he replied, walking over to take the baby from her.

It wasn't nearly as terrifying as when he first held Morgan. He was old hat at this. Junior's hair was light, enough he thought it might end up red like Pepper's.

"Hello little man," he said softly. "You're all kinds of miracle." Junior opened his eyes, and yawned extravagantly. Tony felt Pepper reach up and rub his arm.

The door opened and Amanda stepped in. "How are you guys doing?"

"Just fine, except Pepper broke my hand."

She blinked. "Which one?"

"The fake one," Pepper said. "Is Morgan here?"

"Lani brought her. And actually everyone is here. The waiting room is packed."

Tony looked over at Pepper. "Can I bring him to go meet his aunts and uncles?"

"Let Morgan come meet him alone, first. You'll be mobbed."

"Good point. Can you go bring Morgan in?" he asked Amanda.

She was puttering around Pepper's monitors, but nodded and gave them both a little pat before heading back out to the waiting room. A moment later Lani hovered in with Morgan riding on her lap, looking a little nervous.

"Is Mommy okay?" she asked.

"I'm completely fine, honey, come here," Pepper said, and Morgan leapt of Lani's lap to run to the bed and climb up.

"You want to meet your brother?" Tony asked, bringing him over.

Morgan peered at the baby. "He looks like a gnome."

"So did you when you were born," Tony told her, kissing her forehead. "But you got better."

"No, I was bea-utiful when I was born. You said so." She squinted up at Tony. "Please can we name him Olaf?"

"Not officially, but maybe that can be your special sister nickname for him."

He got a moment of stink face—which he could recognize as his own—and then she smiled. "Okay. I will call him Olaf Gnome."

Behind her Pepper was trying to contain her laughter. "Honey, Daddy is going to take the baby out to meet everybody, do you want to stay and cuddle with Mommy?"

"Yes," she said firmly, cuddling pointedly.

That was going to be fun. "I'll be back in a little bit. Be gentle with Mommy."

"I'll stay," Lani said, and he waved at her in thanks. 

Amanda was waiting out in the hallway. "Redhead, huh? Might have been the mailman."

"I wouldn't put it past my subconscious." He turned to show him properly. "Meet Anthony Edward Stark Junior."

"Couldn't resist, could you?"

"I named him for the bravest man I ever knew."

"Talk about yourself in the past tense more, I can arrange it."

"Sometimes I can still hear his voice. Guiding me."

She sighed and held out her arms. "Shut up and hand me my nephew."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this one. Hope everybody enjoyed it! There will be more stories in this universe yet to come.


End file.
